Red Tape bring you “thrash-punk”

36 minutes and 41 seconds. 15 songs. Level: high. Volume: monstrous. Heaviness: it kicks ass! Welcome to the Red Tape world we know as ‘Radioactivist’. Is this the punk they are singing? It may be but it certainly isn’t the pop-kinda type of smeg-like Blink and Sum keep on churning. This is heavy, thrashy, fast, engaged and hooked on reality. This is punk because it doesn’t shirk from tackling socio-political issues and, well - the singer says so.

“We’re thrash-punk,” claims singer Jeff Jaworski. “The term ‘hardcore’ has changed. We’re hardcore in the early 1980s sense. If it were 1986, we’d be a hardcore band. Nowadays, the meaning has changed.”

Red Tape began life when frontman Jaworski finished his two-year army service - the military bug having been born from a hatred of his surrounding society - and returned to his native Northern California, bought a 4-track, made a demo and found bandmates in local musos/punk heroes. Twig Von Wussow (bass), Mark Meraji (guitar) and JD on drums, who came out of ‘retirement’ for this venture.

The army discipline appears to have had the opposite effect on the vocalist because he appears ready to start a revolution… whatever kind you got to offer. Yeah, true punk had aspirations and its critique used to be acerbic. There is smell of that anarchic spirit here and no fakers are welcome here.

The subjects are well indicated in the song titles: ‘Stalingrad’, ‘Droppin’ Bombs on Your Moms’, ‘El Salvador’, ‘Social Meltdown’, ‘Bl’ast! The System’… Delivered with passion and conviction over huge riffs, intricate guitaring, feedback, harmony discordance, manic distortions all wrapped into robust, mini-epics to sing-a-long or start an uprising. Their lineage is Black Flag, Refused, AFI, as well as the HM giants such as Motorhead and classic Black Sabbath with more of Deep Purple-era Ritchie Blackmore guitar sound.

Red Tape is a taut unit and ‘Radioactivist’ is a noise of protest. They are a great band that took only a 5-track demo and a show to ink the deal. Listening to this, it is easy to hear why. If assurances needed, it will corrode, erode and ultimately - gobble your record collection.

Wrap your lobes around something a bit more - real because, even if you happen to be a pacifist, it is easy to join this ‘army’.

8/10