It’s a galloping horse, an avalanche cresting the face of a cliff, the rush of hot air from a launching rocket.
That is what it feels like to press play on Time Won’t Bring Me Down, the new album from Radioactivity, the Austin-based project led by Jeff Burke and rooted in garage and punk rock. Released Oct. 31 on Dirtnap Records and Wild Honey Records, the album is wrapped in an if-it-ain’t-broke-don’t-fix-it sensibility.
Simple, crisp and clear, Time Won’t Bring Me Down — the group’s first full-length release in a decade — is a classic barrage of eighth notes and a fitting addition to the lineage it draws from. True to that tradition, it does not overstay its welcome: Most of its 11 tracks either fail to reach or barely cross the three-minute mark.
The album, available on Bandcamp, ignites with its title track, which leaps immediately into a wall of guitar, a galloping drum pattern and a tightly wound bass line. In familiar punk-rock fashion, it reads as part confession, part declaration. It carries a sense of overcoming — a desire for something new.
As quickly as it begins, it barrels into “Watch Me Bleed,” which evokes classic garage rock with a bright, hook-forward lead guitar. Soon after comes “This One Time,” slowing the pace into something more measured, leaving space for Burke’s distinct vocal phrasing to take center stage.
“Why” returns to a driving pulse, followed by “Ignorance Is Bliss,” which blends surf-rock inflections with motifs reminiscent of early British punk, ending on a reverb-drenched chord.
“I Thought” takes a turn toward a more pop-oriented sensibility. Focused on lost love, it leans into the emotional melodrama suggested by its chiming guitar tone — a clear nod to the chart-climbers that preceded it.
“One Day” shifts sharply back toward punk, closing with dueling guitar lines that stand out as one of the record’s highlights. “Sleep” continues the momentum with a classic backbeat under a shimmering wash of distortion.
“Analog Ways” introduces an acoustic texture and a sweeping, on-the-road mood, before “Shell” offers another post-punk confession backed by saturated, searching guitar lines. The song exemplifies why the garage-rock sphere continues to produce work of real integrity.
The album closes with “Pain,” a steady, stepwise groove wrapped in guitar noise. It serves as a defiant ballad, concluding the record’s 25-minute arc with a sense of resilience — the will to keep moving forward.
Time Won’t Bring Me Down stands as a continuation, not an imitation. While it unmistakably recalls the Ramones, Buzzcocks, the Cure, the Smiths and others in that tradition, Radioactivity asserts its own character. Burke’s voice remains singular, as does the work of his bandmates — Daniel Fried, Gregory Rutherford and Mark Ryan — along with contributing guitarists Orville Neeley and Yusuke Okada.
In an era defined by shoegaze and hardcore revivals, this album is a reminder that classic sounds endure because they still work — and that, under the right hands, they can feel new again.
