Gig: The Radio Dept.

The Radio Dept. (Young Prisms)

Lee's Palace. Monday, February 7, 2011.

I do my best to avoid Monday shows, which means when I do go out it's usually for a touring band who I'll not get another chance to see again any time soon. And perhaps that was felt a little more keenly this time 'round, with the night's Swedish headliners making their long-awaited local debut. Oh well, at least Monday shows start a little bit earlier.

It actually looked as if the early start time might have as much to do with openers Young Prisms having to get home before curfew. Which is to say that the four-piece out of San Francisco looked like they might not have gotten into the club were they not up on stage.¹

Certainly some of the sounds they were generating were of an older vintage than the players — and at a time when plenty of bands are finding fertile room to explore in the period where "alternative" was becoming "indie", it seems positively classicist to be looking instead at the time when "college rock" was becoming "alternative". Which is to say that Young Prisms' terrain was characterized by music that was smeary but melodic, with overlapping, passed-around vocals mostly handled by Stefanie Hodapp. Definite hints of Sonic Youth and pick-yr-shoegazing reference. Showing their affection for the latter, at the centre of the set, "Breathless" was connected to another song by a relatively lengthy segue of guitar haze.

Actually, both there and in a few other spots, my main complaint was that Matthew Allen's guitar tone could have been a little more aggressively Bloody — most of the time his sound wasn't so much steel wool as itchy sweater, and there were places where a bit more spiky noise would elevate the material. Still, the overall flavour was generally tasty, indicating the band is off to a decent start — the individual songs weren't overwhelming but there's something here. I did like how Stefanie Hodapp's languid vox rubbed up against the guitars. There were shades of our own Mean Red Spiders in a frisky sort of mood — closer "Softer" (a brand-new one) especially brought MRS to mind. Not strikingly new, but this the sort of thing that I dig.

Listen to a track from this set here.

I try to avoid stereotypes as much as possible, but it's hard not to see the evening's headliners as vague avatars of presumed Scandinavian traits: polite, reserved, efficient. So when vocalist/guitarist Johan Duncanson greeted the crowd with a concise few words ("We're The Radio Dept. from Sweden. Thanks for having us.") it seemed about exactly right. If you were going to describe the band's appearance, "unassuming" would come to mind, with three blokes that you could easily imagine playing pick-up soccer after a day of designing safety features for consumer products. They looked like any three Swedish guys you'd pull off the street — which is to say there was a certain amount of stoicism on stage. It was even a rigorously egalitarian set-up, with the trio (who play without a drummer) spaced out evenly across the front of the stage.

I'm far from an expert on the seemingly limitless amount of spookily well-executed pop-rock emerging from Sweden, so I can't say much to situate the band amongst their peers. In fact, I hadn't really distinguished them from the background noise of ten thousand bands competing for my attention until notices for their third album (2010's rather fine Clinging to a Scheme) started piling up. Once I did get my hands on it, I was pretty quickly seduced by the band's effortless music, humane but by no means rough-hewn and packed with spectacularly memorable songs.

Clearly I wasn't the only one that had been brought on board, given the sold-out venue, and that increase in profile had obviously opened some doors for the band. This had enabled them not only to make it over to North America to tour, but also to help bring the newer fans up to speed with the release of the career-spanning Passive Aggressive: Singles 2002-2010 compilation. Given that was the release that the band was ostensibly promoting, it made sense that they started off with "Freddie and the Trojan Horse", one of the non-album tracks on that set. This song (and some others throughout the set) had a two-guitar setup — Martin Larsson would subsequently switch over to bass as required.

My only concern coming in to this show was how much presence and spark an unapologetic "studio" band would bring to their live show. They certainly weren't out to impress with their gear — Duncanson had but a teenie little rehearsal amp on stage. Roaring walls of sound this ain't, but it is sleek, well-crafted pop, quietly impassioned in a way to draw the listener in.

The setlist seemed meticulously-planned to cover as many facets as possible, with Clinging to a Scheme's "This Time Around" followed by a back-to-back pair of excursions to 06's Pet Grief ("I Wanted You to Feel the Same", "The Worst Taste in Music"). Then a b-side ("Messy Enough") and another retrospective pair, from 2003's debut Lesser Matters. Although received wisdom is that the band's earlier material hadn't crossed the terminator from shoegaze to dreampop, except for the relative balance of guitar to synthesizer there's more continuities than radical breaks. "Why Won't You Talk About It" and "Ewan", both with that more prominent guitar sound, still weren't exactly a noisefest or anything.

Regardless of whether the songs came from the breakthrough album or anywhere else in the discography, the crowd immediately recognized and cheered each song. And while the band wasn't too demonstrative, they did seem impressed and spurred on by the enthusiastic crowd, even if you had to read between the lines in Duncanson's banter ("You're too kind.") to perceive that.

The quieter "Domestic Scene" was pretty tasty, but for a while in the late-middle part of the set, I was pondering to myself on the utility of seeing this sort of live performance. This is contained, carefully-crafted music, and the band's means of production imply they're never really going to tear it up. It's a solid representation of their music, but not particularly different from the recorded versions. Of course, where there's amazing songs behind it all, it hardly matters, and as "Heaven's On Fire" kicked in, it made me feel churlish to doubt the power of the band.

In un-rock'n'roll fashion, the set ended with the band leaving the stage one at a time, leaving the backing track playing. And in a less dramatic gesture than a roadie coming to stop the squall by pulling the last guitar off a feedback-squealing amp, here the music ended when someone came and pressed a button on the laptop.

After that, the house music came up as if that was it, but the crowd kept clapping for a couple minutes, and finally the band returned to play the glide-y/dreamy "The City Limit" (another old one from Pulling Our Weight), still looking a little surprised at the extent of the adulation being sent their way. And then, pretty much precisely one hour after taking the stage, it was done.

Looking back, I have no regrets that I went. It was a solid but not particularly exciting show. Certainly not the sort of thing where I'd feel compelled to head back to see 'em. However, it looks like I'm the odd one out here. Although this show was a long-awaited local debut for the band, they've already made their return, and will be back in town yet again in short order² — so obviously this is turning some peoples' cranks.

Check out an older song from this set here or a newer one here.

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¹ Another manifestation of their youth was their keen food-related chatter between songs, which accounted for nearly all the banter during the set.

² The Radio Dept. will be back in town at The Mod Club on Thursday, November 17, 2011.