As memorable as a walk to Lidl.
The Radio Dept. are a four-piece band from Malmo, Sweden. Most commonly pigeon-holed into the genres of indie pop or shoegaze, this second full-length album has a strong electronic influence and is highly unlikely to be described as the latter. Opening with 'It's Personal', a vocal-less electronic affair in the same vein as later tracks 'South Side' and 'Gibraltar', the album appears to be trying for an almost ambient feel, complete with spacey electronic sound effects and a building wall of sound. In such instrumental tracks The Radio Dept. sound as though they are trying to inhabit the same space as Sigur Rós, unfortunately such songs come across as a bad copy, one attempted too many times before elsewhere.
'A Window' represents The Radio Dept.'s first foray into an upbeat track on the album. Like the tracks that precede it, it is heavy with electronic effects, particularly synthed instruments. The song lacks structure, as demonstrated by the lack of an instrumental "gap" for the song's vocal sections, which results in their being drowned out. 'A Window' does have a foot-tapping rhythm, but it lacks a strong tune and is easily forgettable. Later tracks 'What Will Give?', 'Tell' and 'Always A Relief' operate in the same vein, the latter seemingly an odd choice for a closing track as it does nothing to "round off" the album – perhaps an instrumental track would have brought it to a close more effectively. It isn't difficult to imagine any of the songs mentioned in this paragraph on the soundtrack to an uneventful indie movie in the "pretentious without even having a hidden meaning" vein; but that's because they're both boring.
The album contains a few ballads in addition to its instrumental efforts, 'I Wanted You To Feel The Same' being one. Although it has a slow pace and supposedly heartfelt lyrics (such as 'It breaks my heart to say that when I was in pain / I wanted you to feel the same') the track has a poor structure and, again, too many electronic effects to make it comfortable listening. The only track on the album to be slightly memorable is 'The Worst Taste In Music'. Unlike the majority of the tracks here (particularly those with vocals) it has a thought-out structure with build, depth and changes in pace and rhythm. It still falls into the trap of being too "busy", instrumentally speaking, but refrains from fading into the background as much as the remainder of the album does. Plus, what self-respecting music lover can resist a song with a lyric about unrequited love featuring the lines 'But he's got the worst taste in music / If I didn't know this I'd lose it'?
'Pet Grief' isn't totally without merit. The band are daring to do something different with their use of electronic effects, and some of the instrumental tracks, particularly the opener 'It's Personal' show that the band has the potential to do well in the genre, even if a little more practice is needed first. 'The Worst Taste In Music' stands out from the others by a good margin, and if only the other tracks here were of the same standard the album would receive a mark nearer to 10 out of 13; unfortunately however, the majority of the tracks lack any memorable characteristic, lyrically or musically. There is not one catchy melody on the entire CD, and most of the songs blend together almost seamlessly, whether or not they have lyrics, which is clearly not the band's intention.