- Does the nervous energy of Radium Dolls leak out from the seams of their debut EP Bel-Haven despite having been shut up with the rest of us, for six months, or because of it? Probably both? There’s an uncomfortable, frenetic quality to the Brisbane band that dances off-kilter and up in your face, like a conversation with someone speeding off their dial. It’s difficult to know whether you’re being entertained or about to be headbutted. Again, probably both.
In the five songs on the EP they slip between styles, usually skipping over a couple in any given number. Most obviously and you’ll get this in opener, Treat, they do alarmingly paced post-punk, bathed in a cold sweat, with a twist of some more sweet style of rock’n’roll - be it garage, power-pop or glam. You may even hear the kind of ooh-wee-oohs (see the track Transmission) that I swear someone like Boy & Bear had trademarked. Suffice to say Radium Dolls like to mix it up and since I might not find anywhere else to say this, I especially like their shot at a Ramones-esque chorus on Radioactive Quackery!
Frontman, Will (?), also plays drums in up-and-coming outfit, Perve Endings, another band that likes to mix up rough, punky stuff with other genres. In PE’s case, however, they do it in a way that gives more ground to lush and tuneful psych. Here Will gives vent to a likeably deranged sung-spoken vocal style. Snatches of conversational narrative festoon the songs and, deliberately, never feel like they’re quite as complete as the rest of the music. It’s like Will is a very garrulous chap, but also one with something to hide; possibly several things. “I’m not a bad guy” he insists on the country-folk tinged Where To Go. He starts out musing on a change in career, but somehow is soon telling us “but I’ve been doing questionable things” which we never quite get the full story on.
It’s the same in opener, Treat, which is just one of the more genuinely uneasy nights out you can imagine. Will’s desperate attempts at a sincere connection sound like they could so easily descend into a back-alley stabbing as he monologues whoever he’s talking to into silence. “What a surprise! To see you out so late at night!” The leaping, stop-start rhythms are the perfect, twitchy accompaniment.
It’s easy to hear the influence of the similarly strange Aussie post-punks The Peep Tempel on Bel-Haven, but you could also imagine Radium Dolls -who are at the moment only early-career psychopaths, not quite comfortable yet in their maladjusted skins- pupating into the full-on, sneering misanthropy of The Drones at some point in the future.
Radium Dolls are like the night-life in the Valley at two o’clock on any given morning: you’ve seen it before and you might just dismiss it, but you can’t fully ignore it because there’s a small chance it might twitch out and assault you. The success of Bel-Haven is that it manages to make this proposition exciting, tuneful and pretty entertaining. I’ll be keeping a hairy eyeball on this band into the future.
- Chris Cobcroft.