Live

The Radio Dept., Pistol Disco

Neil Watts 15/05/2010

Absence makes the heart grow fonder, that's how the saying goes. For some, four years may stretch that fondness to breaking point, but The Radio Dept have used their cult status to their advantage despite all the dithering and abortive attempts at nailing their third long player. A smattering of singles, EPs and free downloads have acted as tasters teasing fans and keeping the blogosphere cooing appreciatively. The lack of animosity may owe to their new album, 'Clinging to a Scheme', finding them at their melancholic best fusing distorted shoegaze with dreamy snyths.

By a way of introduction four unassuming figures shuffled on to the smoke-filled stage in the plush, glowing surroundings of Lille Vega and clattered into the rumbling and tumbling 'This Time Around'. The almost tropical beats of the infectious 'Heaven's on Fire' got the impossibly stylish crowd swaying and dancing with delight. Even with their unmoving prim and proper stage presence they can still produce a wall of blistering sound by thrashing through the fuzztastic 'Why Won't You Talk About It'. “Whatever they told you/I'm dying to hold you”, Johan Duncansson sang in his disaffected drawl on the night's most heartbreakingly beautiful moment 'You Stopped Making Sense'. The delicate 'I Don't Like It Like This' proved once more why Sofia Coppola handpicked it for her film Marie Antoinette, setting the hype machine into overdrive.

The set is over all too soon, though that is the way The Radio Dept like it. They leave you wanting more, but hopefully they won't leave it so long this time.