At home, they're tourists: Radio 4 hail from New York but pledge allegiance to late-'70s British punk and post-punk, so much so that you half-expect bassist/singer Anthony Roman to break into a refrain of "This is Radio 4 on pirate satellite" at some point during The New Song and Dance. Tommy Williams' guitarwork splits the difference neatly between the clanging, reverb-heavy sound of the Clash, and the fractured, Tourette's-like outbursts of Gang of Four. One could even assume, without too much of a stretch, that they named themselves after the BBC radio station. But what to make of the album's title? Is it mere clumsy irony, or an upfront admission to the fact that everything old eventually becomes new again in today's recycle-happy culture?
Perhaps it's both, but in the end, The New Song and Dance is mostly old and more of the same. Not to say that being heavily influenced by first-wave British post-punk is a bad thing-- indeed, the world would be arguably a much better place if more bands took their cues from the likes of Wire and the Fall-- but, as with any influences, bands either need to transcend them and establish a sound of their own, or be so damned catchy that it's easy to ignore the fact that they're ripping off some other band wholesale (hi, Elastica).
Radio 4 bring only improved production techniques to their stuck-in-the-past formula; while all their songs dutifully hover between 2\xBD to 3\xBD minutes in length, their hooks are built for even shorter attention spans, repeating themselves just a little too often to not feel like they're being hammered into your skull with a big cartoon-like mallet. They become the type of things that you find yourself humming along to even as you're thinking, "That's kind of annoying." Eventually, the neverending parade of short, sharp riffs can become the aural equivalent of Chinese water torture.
One gets the feeling that Radio 4 are a solid live band-- the kind that can incite a crowd into getting down in that embarrassing white-people-shuffle, Courtney-Cox-in-the-"Dancing in the Dark"-video sort of way. On record, though, Roman's and Williams' constant scratchy-throatted yelling seems strained, and the band's energy comes off a bit too pushy. Even at under 35 minutes, The New Song and Dance overstays its welcome.
