Radiation City

Every time I listen to Cool Nightmares by Radiation City I get chills. Not just any chills, but the kind of chills you get right before a huge concert. When the lights in the arena go down and the anticipation of some 20,000 people bubbles over into a giddy electricity that causes the hair on your body to stand up and your gut to tighten up, all while waiting for the release of the first note. Then, an explosion of adrenaline and joy lights up your face and everyone else’s for the next hour and a half. Cool Nightmares is that kind of album. It owns your soul, and when it ends, you're left a husk of a man wondering what the fuck just happened.

In a lot of ways Radiation City reminds me of what it would sound like if Dr. Buzzard’s Original Savannah Band was populated by the production minds behind A Tribe Called Quest and Portishead. It has that same sort of jamming and mashing together of genres feel to it.

Yet it sounds like nothing I have ever really heard before.

Gigantic and swirling, filled to the brim with gravitas and brass balls awesomeness that leaves me spent and needing a sandwich. Lizzy Ellison’s voice is haunting and original. It feels like sunshine is being poured down your throat and is fucking magnificent over the upbeat and glowing production style, but when coupled with the darker and more dreamy vibes that sprinkle the EP, it is fucking mindboggling. It leaves me lost in the place where I feel as though I can float away into my subconscious and never return. It is especially effective on Eye of Yours when Ellison is joined by Cameron Spies. The two work perfectly together, cleaning up each others edges and finding a comfortable middle that is all feathery and cozy.

Spies owns the world on Winter Blind, a soulful little ditty that makes me feel like the end days are upon us, it is perhaps the most fitting song ever for the end credits on planet earth. I love the shit out of it. Every song on this EP is just a swirling and layered masterpiece, it has turned me into a junkie for Radiation City, and I would steal my parent’s TV if it meant I could sell it off for another shot of their intoxicating goodness.