Cursed

The Radio Knives are a bunch of frantic noisemakers from Boston who used to be called TV Eye, and while you don't for a second doubt that these guys love the Stooges (as the old name would suggest), they tend to sound more like other bands who love the Stooges — most notably Radio Birdman or the Dictators, only with less hard rock and more garage-punk folded into the mixture. But they do share the Stooges' innate understanding of what makes for good rock & roll — lots of raunchy guitar, big drums, a vocalist with plenty of snarl and attitude, and songs that get to the point and hit it hard. Cursed, the debut album from the Radio Knives, has all these attributes in plentiful supply, and guitarist/singer Stephen Fay, bassist/singer Alan A. Levesque, and exiled drummer Daniel J. McCarthy don't let the energy flag for a moment during the disc's 37-minute duration. While these guys don't exactly reinvent the wheel (you've got a lot of tunes about bad girls, bad attitude, and partying in the hearty manner), the songs strut the traditional stuff with high style and plenty of sweat, and "Son of a Gun" is a pleasant surprise, sort of a moody rock variation on Steve Earle's "The Devil's Right Hand." If you're one of those people who thinks rock is dead, the Radio Knives will reveal the body still has plenty of life left in it with a few spins of Cursed.