RADIO DEPT. - Lesser Matters

It was inevitable. Not even dream-pop has been spared by the revivalist wave that, on multiple fronts (punk, wave, electropop and whatever else you can throw into the mix), is sweeping over the music scene of the new millennium. The musical current that, starting in the mid-80s with Cocteau Twins and Jesus and Mary Chain and, through the shoegaze variant of bands like My Bloody Valentine, Ride and Slowdive, defined the 90s indie scene with its dreamy, distant atmospheres, often heavily psychedelic (recall the pioneering work of Spacemen 3), yet always marked by a pronounced pop sensibility (of the Velvet Underground school) - is now being evoked (or rather, reclaimed) by Sweden's Radio Dept. Led by Martin Larsson and Johan Duncanson, after a low-key start back in 1998, they have recently stepped into the international indie-pop spotlight with "Lesser Matters", a thirteen-track collection that has been enthusiastically received (rightly so, we might add) by the specialist press.

Unlike many recently established acts, Radio Dept. don't engage in a sterile exhumation of musical languages already consolidated and established in a more or less distant past; instead, they revitalize sonic approaches that are always winning, thanks to a melodic and compositional ability that cannot (and should not) go unnoticed. While the atmospheres they recreate are those of dream-pop, the sonic architecture plays on a miraculous balance between the acoustic and the synthetic, underpinned by an innate gift for melody; what in traditional shoegaze was mostly expressed through swirling vortexes of distorted, noisy guitars becomes, on "Lesser Matters", a hazy, dreamy pop, often built on acoustic foundations, marked by a skillful and careful use of electronics - never dominant, but an essential element of the sonic landscape.

"Too Soon" is just an introduction, a preamble of synths and honeyed keyboards that, after barely a minute, leads us into the sun-drenched garage sound of "Where Damage Isn't Already Done", dominated by guitars and drums with a rough lo-fi sound (in the vein of Sebadoh); what strikes you immediately is a simply memorable melodic structure, and this is only the beginning. "Keen On Boys" steers us into clearly shoegaze territory: amid reverbs, reversed sounds, long guitar drones and a linear vocal melody, it feels like listening to an old record from the glorious Creation Records; "Why Won't You Talk About It?", fitted out with unmistakable muffled sounds, feedback and a pounding rhythm, doubles down, showing us a soft version of the earliest Jesus and Mary Chain with synths in place of guitars; "It's Been Eight Years" is a sweet ballad tinged with electronics that wouldn't be out of place in the Notwist catalogue, while with "Bus" we find ourselves immersed in an impalpable melancholy with Smiths-like overtones, or rather, a kind of Belle and Sebastian dressed up synthetically.

After "Slottet#2", an instrumental soundtrack piece not too far removed from certain Air-branded atmospheres, comes one of the "strong" tracks: "1995", whose very title nods to "1979" by Smashing Pumpkins. A little songwriting masterpiece, carried by an acoustic guitar riff in sync with the vocal (pure Nick Drake style) that, in a crescendo of enveloping synths and cascading guitar arpeggios, builds to a chorus worthy of the best indie-pop school. A little gem. "Against The Tide" moves along the same lines, while "Strange Things Will Happen", helped along by bassist Lisa Carlberg's childlike voice, even brings to mind the legendary Pastels.

The album's final tracks are the most emotionally charged, from the Young-esque folk (marked more by organ than guitars) of "Your Father", through the wave sound of "Ewan" (another high point of the album, if only for its interplay of heavy keyboards and guitars in a Joy Division/Cure vein), to the closing "Lost And Found" which, with a memorable, spleen-laden final guitar phrase, utterly disarms the listener.

"Lesser Matters" proves that today's music scene is not merely a slavish, indiscriminate imitation of the past, but can still produce original, inspired syntheses in a new and effective language. More simply put, an album to love.

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29/10/2006