Recordhead Records
2005
Public Radio
About This Album
The Legends sophomore set effectively abandoned the raucously upbeat, '60s-influenced noise-pop of their surprise indie hit debut, proffering instead a tastefully moody if rather antiseptic evocation of 1980s British post-punk. Joy Division, New Order, Felt and The Cure are among the all-too-obvious reference points -- a fashionable list in 2006, certainly, which makes the album feel like an artifact of its time instead of a canny throwback -- but Public Radio pointedly lacks any of spark and personality of those bands. Indeed, it seems as if Johan Angergård (not so much the band's frontman as its only member, at least on record, as the impersonally succinct liner notes make clear) was determined to hone in on the fundamental elements common to the sound of those and similar groups, and distill them into a pitch-perfect archetype of their era without any overtly distinguishing characteristics. (Titling one of the songs "I Want To Be Like Everybody Else" is a pretty decent indication, and also suggests he's not doing it without a bit of a smirk.) If that was his goal, he's succeeded admirably here: from the bleak, stripped-down machine drum pulse that opens "Today," Public Radio is lavishly laid out, almost wall-to-wall, with atmospheric synth washes, pensive muted guitar leads, and wispy introverted vocals (wanting only for the pained gloominess of a Curtis or Smith), all of it practically buried under layers of reverb.
Track List (try tracks 1,2,3,6,7,8,9,11 and 12)

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