Straddling mid-1960s bubblegum and mid-80s feedback, the Legends' 2004 debut, Up Against the Legends, was full of shimmery pop and surprisingly inventive melodies that resolved themselves in unexpected ways. On their follow-up, Public Radio, head Legend Johan Angeråld rips it up and starts again, skipping ahead 15 or so years, landing squarely in post-punk. The desire for change is understandable-- pigeonholing is a threat to any band that could be identified by an entire decade. And besides, this move from pre- to post-punk mirrors a larger shift away from the 60s (the garage rock boom of a few years back) to the early 80s (the Bravery/Killers/Razorlight/ad nauseum movement of the moment).
The Legends get the sound right, that's for sure. With an ear toward dry historical recreation, they replicate the gauzy production values, those watery Cure guitar effects, the vocals that invade your personal space, and the simple drum machine programmed to strike on the second and fourth beats-- all down to a tee. Never mind, though, that there's at least one band, maybe even two, on every street corner aping this exact sound. Never mind too that the album sounds like the efforts of a lone man sitting in a sterile studio rather than the collaborative effort between several musicians. The real problem on Public Radio is that this academic exercise obscures the band's considerable strengths while highlighting its weaknesses.
In this hermetic setting, Angeråld's airy vocals sound devoid of character or identity, and his songwriting suffers dramatically. There's not a memorable hook or an intriguing melody on any of these dozen songs-- 20 if you count the bonus disc of remixes and bonuses that accompanies the first 1,000 copies. The songs follow predictable paths, preempting any sort of surprise, and are so loosely constructed and unmoored from the music that they seem to dissipate and slip from memory even as you hear and process them. For songwriting the Legends substitute a vaguely moody pallor, especially on the opener "Today" and "Hide Away", but the atmosphere feels sterile, as if it's been created and contained within a cleanroom. You can't dance to a control group, even if it's been remixed*.*
Public Radio peaks very briefly in the middle, when the Legends graft 60s elements-- bright choruses, handclaps, sunny harmonies-- onto Angeråld's filtered guitars and Atari keyboards. But instead of mutating into some weird and wonderful hybrid of 60s and 80s pop-- we'll call it the 70s-- songs like "He Knows the Sun", "Something Good", and "Heaven Will Wait" still sound pretty awkward and unstable, their elements never mixing and combining. Worse, the songs suggest a more satisfying experiment that the band doesn't pursue. As soon as "Heaven Will Wait" ends, it's back to the predictable sturm-und-drang of "I Want to Be Like Everyone Else", with its dull vocals and ominous piano chords signifying not much of anything.
Don't get me wrong: I'm not grading the Legends down for abandoning the 60s, or even for failing to devise a workable concoction of two genres, but rather for diluting all the qualities they exhibited on Up Against for what sounds like a stab at timeliness. The wit, creativity, and exuberance that put their debut in constant rotation at my house are entirely missing on Public Radio. In fact, the only thing that seems to link these two albums-- besides the band name-- is the odd secrecy which the Legends seem to insist on. The packaging is all white, with only a sticker on the cover to identify artist and title; on the back and spines, the tracklist is indistinguishable from the catalogue information. Such mystery was strangely compelling on Up Against, but on Public Radio, it's merely frustrating that the music is just as anonymous as the musicians.
