Red Kate

Railing against what is unfair is primary fodder for rock and roll. Lately, though, we seldom find full-grown men hollering like outraged adolescents. Taking a cue from Marx and Engels, Red Kate hopes to break the chains of oppression for the rocking class. To drive its point home, Kansas City’s newest yell-core band (composed of no members under 30) has dressed itself in Soviet-propaganda-themed art, and on the quartet’s debut EP, Little Red Songbook, these Reds throw their shoulders and voice boxes into full tilt. Bassist and lead vocalist L. Ron Drunkard, a socialist activist by day, bellows like an Appalachian Roger Daltrey. These guys aren’t hungry and standing in bread lines, but rather are trying to make sense of the women they love. Through anthems such as the stellar “Sooner or Later” and “My City” and the punkabilly clunker “Flirty Hips,” we hear grown-ups getting mad about relationships having to be so damn hard. Though easy for males to relate to, this stuff isn’t going to make any Kate come on back to the Party.