Since their acclaimed debut, 2003’s Lesser Matters, Sweden’s the Radio Dept. have been known for their defiantly lo-fi brand of dream-pop, favoring scratchy, ear-numbing guitars and tinny Casio beats over the lusher sounds of their peers. This became a calling card, something that set them apart. Apart from a career-spanning compilation (2011’s essential Passive Aggressive: Singles 2002-2010) and a smattering of single releases last year, Running Out of Love is the Radio Dept.’s first album of new material since 2010’s stellar Clinging to a Scheme, and while many would have been perfectly content with a total carbon copy of their greatest achievements, what makes this record so refreshing is its unabashed ambition, the sound of a band rejecting indie-darling complacency for riskier, more mature territory. And the gamble more than pays off.
The band meant it as a protest record, a bold statement, a document of their fear of an ever-encroaching dystopia. “Sloboda Narodu,” the record’s opener, means “Freedom to the People” in Serbo-Croatian, a reference to a populist slogan coined during the Yuglosav anti-Axis resistance of World War II. Far from your typical twee fare of doe-eyed romance and bedroom dancing, “Sloboda Narodu” sets the stage for a full-blown political manifesto. “Don’t ask for patience/’Cause we just don't have the time/Freedom now,” sings frontman Johan Duncansson, his vocals as blissed-out and buried in the mix as ever. Musically, the track takes its cue from that sweet spot in ’90s Britpop that itself was aping ’60s psychedelia, with fuzzy guitars climbing over bongos.
However from there, Running Out of Love hopscotches from genre to genre at breakneck speed. “Swedish Guns” (a meditation on Sweden’s little-known international arms industry) has the woozy dancefloor tilt of early Saint Etienne, while “We Got Game” (addressing police brutality) sounds like a backmasked, distorted version of Inner City’s Detroit house anthem “Good Life.” This is far from the first time the band have dallied with electronic music, but unlike, for example, their synth-heavy second album Pet Grief, this feels more like a marriage than a one-off; it’s as if Belle and Sebastian had decided to write an entire album of their polarizing 1996 song “Electronic Renaissance.” “Committed to the Cause” sounds like Happy Mondays by way of Prefab Sprout’s dandy sophistication, and the six-minute-long “Teach Me to Forget” even flirts with EDM, a broke-down version of a Top 40 banger. The multiple twists and turns here gradually unlock a completely new world orbiting their already adored universe, a daring feat for a beloved cult band. It might take a little longer for it to sink in with fans, but given enough time, the album portrays them in a completely new light, both politically and musically adventurous.
