Radiana

Driven by the core duo of Steven Deal and Lisa Stockton-Wilson, veterans of various acts with a goth or a 21st century pop-punk bent, Radiana provide an enjoyable synthesis of sounds and styles on their self-titled debut, cherry-picking all over the place to create a fusion that nicely gels together at its best. It might be strange to say it's a '90s revival effort, even the various stylings on the cover art and overall image — if anything it's half modern anime and half steampunk — but that's the kind of unexpected twist that makes the album more than what it seems on first blush with fine if fairly straightforward songs like "Over the Moon." "Tigress on a Train Moving Fast" provides one of the first real kicks, though, besides having a perfect title — hints of Stereolab's melodic sense appear, even if it's more of a straight-up rock arrangement than that band ever did, stronger for sure but this is more of a pop/rock thing than them. Flecks of motorik beats can also be heard on "Black Sheep," but the taut barnburner of "Love Is Not a Crime" is more of an individual standout, harking back to the theatrical feeling of Siouxsie and the Banshees or perhaps, more tellingly, Xmal Deutschland. Other songs like "Glass Mountain" and the chirpy closer "Something Like Penguins" — with horns, at that! — add to the album's fun joys.