05/28/09
Text: Nik Mercer
Sweden's reigning king of indie music, Labrador Records, tends to be a rather hit-or-miss company. While they'll always be home to some incredible Scandinavian bands (the Legends, Sambassadeur, Acid House Kings, Suburban Kids With Biblical Names), they tend to be especially good at picking up crap and doing themselves no good.
We're big fans of the Radio Dept. (and that's not just because we heard 'em on Marie Antoinette!), but ever since they switched from being a smooth and organic rock group that sounded a whole hell of a lot like New Order at times to a robotically synthetic and sharp neo-shoegaze entity, we've become dangerously close to losing the plot.
The 14-year-old quartet's latest four-track EP, David, is a bit of a sleeper, unfortunately. While we've only heard the title tune, we can't say the disc is anything incredible. The keyboard riff sounds like a direct rip of some incredibly mainstream hip-hop song that we're embarrassingly blanking on right now. Give it a try, though. Maybe you'll find something that we're missing.
On an unrelated note, Amazon is having a pretty amazing 33% off 33 rpm vinyl sale that you ought to check out!
the Radio Dept. - David (MP3)
