After issuing a pair of well-received EPs in 2013, brothers
Dee,
Isaiah, and
Solomon Radke, all of whom were well under the voting age at the time of release, looked poised to bring their vintage,
Misfits-obsessed punk rock sound to the world's stage. After a vigorous bout of touring (and home schooling), the St. Joseph, Missouri-based trio headed into the studio and began work on their much anticipated debut long-player. Recorded in San Francisco, California and Sheffield, England with producer
Ross Orton (
Arctic Monkeys,
the Fall,
Jarvis Cocker), the resulting
Delicious Rock Noise, which was originally issued in 2015 as
Dark Black Makeup, is an old-school blast of misunderstood youth-fueled horror punk that's delivered with both punch and panache. It also couldn't have been created without the existence of the
Misfits' 1982 debut full-length
Walk Among Us, due in large part to frontman
Dee's spot-on
Glenn Danzig impersonation (to be fair, he tosses in a little
Ian Astbury,
Nick Cave, and
Jim Morrison for good measure). The songs themselves are economical, melodic, and bristling with teen angst and nervy bravado, with highlights arriving via the propulsive "Romance Down," the classic rock-tinged "Hunger Pain," and the meaty,
Social Distortion/
Ramones-blasted title cut, which opens on a knowingly ironic note with the line "kids these days." Barely out of their teens, the band's enthusiastic aping of their idols can be forgiven (they even go so far as to build the largely nonsensical "Le Song" around the lyric "come a little bit closer," which is the refrain from the
Walk Among Us gem "Vampira"), but they'll need to dial down the hero worship on future endeavors if they ever want to establish their own legacy of brutality.