I knew of Tired Radio, but I didn't really know the band's work. When Red Scare announced they'd signed the band, I figured it was a good excuse to dive in -- and I'm glad I did.
Hope in the Haze is the title of their Red Scare debut and that title kind of sums up their general vibe too. The band play worn and weathered punk rock that's musically uplifting while lyrically grim. It's about the trials and tribulations of daily life, navigating hardship and the seemingly endless assault of new challenges. They are sad fucking songs sung with cathartic choruses. In some ways I'm thinking of their approach as an evolution of Iron Chic's sound. It's highly melodic and relies on big moments to pull you out of the muck. But the band mixes up their sound a lot more. There are tiny guitar solos, mellow tracks, and lots of song structure variation from track to track.
Yes, I'm widely painting the band as emotional pop-structured punk but there are a lot of songs here that if you heard them on The Streamer without context you might just call it alt-rock or something. It's all guitar-driven and driving, but they aren't just a Ramones clone. There's a lot of variety in the 10 tracks, most of which clock around 3:30 instead of the standard 2:30 punk jams I frequent. The closer even tops 6-minutes. The really impressive part is that it tops 6 minutes without boring me to tears. On the flip side, some of the lyrical topics do bring me to tears. In other words, this is punk rock that packs a punch -- just not that spit 'n' safety pin old school macho shit.
