Album Review: Radiation City

The Hands That Take You (Apes Tapes)

By Casey Jarman

[POST-WHATEVER] Moody, trip-hop-inspired indie pop. That's what I'd call the music on Radiation City's new full-length, The Hands That Take You. The local trio, which includes members of genre-bending atmospheric pop outfits Spesus Christ and Soap Collectors, is working its way from Portland's basement scene to surface-level clubs and helping redefine the Portland sound in the process. Or making it harder to define.

Hands sounds familiar in slices—one can almost make out a little Jarvis-less Pulp on opener "Babies"; "Salsaness" bears a strange resemblance to the Cardigans' "Lovefool"; "Park" is a trippy vocal-exercise pop track reminiscent of early Shins—and one gets the feeling that the band purposefully indulges its own breadth. When Cameron Spies slips into his best lounge-singer voice and tumbles out the words "I am yours but I am not your man" on "Phantom Lady," one gets the distinct feeling that he's playing Jim Morrison for a verse—and loving every second of it.

Despite all the fun Radiation City has, though, it's an album you have to take seriously. The disc is beautifully produced: Its blips and bleeps blend seamlessly with foggy vocal filters and reverb-drenched guitar to make something creepy and affecting in the same moment. The clarity of tone is especially striking on "Construction," the album's spiritual closer (only a brief instrumental buffers it from ending the disc) and a fine showcase for some of Lizzy Ellison's more straightforward crooning.

When taken alone, Radiation City is one of Portland's more polished and promising young acts. But the band also represents a larger, encouraging shift in local music: It's one in a new generation of local acts—and labels like Apes Tapes—that don't care much for the longstanding walls between slow acoustic pop, dance music, experimental electronic music and distortion-fueled rock. And, really, it's about time those walls fell down.

GO: Radiation City releases The Hands That Take You on Monday, Feb. 28, at Mississippi Studios, with the Woolen Men and Support Force. 9 pm. Free. 21+.

WWeek 2015

Casey Jarman

Casey Jarman

Casey Jarman is a freelance editor and writer based in East Portland, Oregon. He has served as Music Editor at Willamette Week and Managing Editor at The Believer magazine, where he remains a contributing editor. He is currently working on his first book. It's about death.

Willamette Week’s reporting has concrete impacts that change laws, force action from civic leaders, and drive compromised politicians from public office.

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