"do your life justice/it won’t take long”
Radio 4 is underhanded. Stealing of a Nation may be assertive and edgy, but it’s dance rock nonetheless. It may seem like harmless fun on the surface, but after you start letting the infectious beat and melodies start your toe tapping, and the sing-along choruses make you, well, want to sing along, you start realizing what you and the band are singing. This is The Revolution on disc, with rhythm.
Lyrics from song to song start adding up in your mind—“There’s reason to be uncertain,” “Got you holding on/It’s a state of alert again,” “They need you to be uncertain,” “Thanks for all you showed us but you won’t be coming back next time”—until it dawns on you that you’re picturing yourself among a congregation of bodies moving as one in a packed warehouse, and Radio 4 is the preacher.
The music is Depeche Mode and Head in the Door-era Cure melodies over techno music and swirling guitars, with the Prodigy and the Beta Band thrown in for good measure. It’s a beautiful, haunting, moving cacophony meant to inspire your feet and head. This kind of dance rock is an evolution of music that’s been working its way through New York for several years now: rock with a fat beat pushing it along at a breakneck pace, with multiple layers of sound that you want to dance to, rave to, and turn up very, very loud. And let’s not forget Radio 4’s powerful, confident vocals, which sound underground and dangerous.
“Party Crashers” is cocky and in-your-face. “State of Alert,” with its chorus “There’s reason to be uncertain” (inspiring fear and optimism at once), is the most unlikely sing-along of the year. “FRA Type 1 & 2” teams the sparseness of Madonna’s “Die Another Day” with floating, comforting melodies to make you want to jerk your body. “Nation” has a bass line that dissolves into a dreamy, despair-filled mood à la Depeche Mode’s “Black Celebration,” though Radio 4 somehow makes it hopeful with a subtle melody.
There are no boundaries to Radio 4, who take the idea of dance rock and make it their own, alive and twisting into your ears like an organic thing looking for a brain stem. The wonderful melodies, the changing hooks, the growth within songs, the sing-along choruses, and the fresh approach to what rock can be makes Stealing of a Nation a category-crossing gem that is proud to be stealthy. I don’t normally like dance music. I didn’t even see it coming before Radio 4’s claws were in me.