Radiation4

It would seem that, for the immediate future, the bands that are going to have any real musical impact on the extreme music scene are those who dare to mix and match styles and generally disrupt convention with musical dichotomy, but at the same time retain some semblance of cohesive songwriting and structuring. California’s Radiation4 are a band that knows what the score is in this regard, improving upon their rough tape I first heard a few months ago. The band is what a head-on collision between a bunch of emo kids on a joyride, Mike Patton heading home after a hard day sorting out the Kids of Widney High tour logistics, Coalesce’s tour van and some of that dreaded "nu-metal” the kids are so hocked up on these days. Indeed, they are a extremely dynamic bunch, but the bipolar superstar of the quintet has to be vocalist Chris Negrete. Negrete lunges between a pretty good crooning Patton imitation to an almost Max Cavelera-ish bellow before abusing the natural state of his voice box with some unearthly death metal growling, sometimes over the course of a single lyrical line.