Brad Marino Agent of Chaos CD
BRAD MARINO has been working the seam between rock’n’roll and power pop for a long time now, first with New Hampshire’s the CONNECTION and now five albums into a solo run. He covered the RAMONES’ Subterranean Jungle front to back in 2020, then put out a 2024 EP called Ramones and Stones whose title track happily admits he doesn’t much need anything else. Agent of Chaos works that same ground, but sounds closer to Pleasant Dreams than Too Tough to Die. What keeps it from being a costume is that it doesn’t feel like MARINO is impersonating anyone. He’s carrying the thing forward rather than wearing its skin. Thirteen songs in thirty-three minutes, with Gene Champagne of TEENAGE HEAD behind the kit for most of the way, and my favorite tracks are “Voodoo” and “Devil May Care,” the latter breaking up the formula with some lap steel from James Cap Nunn. I usually want records louder and faster than this, and mid-tempo is a hard sell for me, but these songs just sound exactly like what they ought to be. The CD has a bonus cover of the JESUS AND MARY CHAIN’s “Between Planets.”
