Philadelphia’s Radiator Hospital have recently released their second album, Torch Song. The album has been streaming online for several months now, so chances are you already know all about it, but we haven’t written about it yet, and I’m enjoying it so much it seemed a shame to let it drift by.
Radiator Hospital is Sam Cook-Parrott and friends (friends with indie rock pedigree – including members of Waxahatchee, All Dogs and Swearin’), who join together to form a pretty formidable lo-fi rock band.
There are fifteen songs on this album, with not one deserving to have been left out, and the band smash through them in under 35 minutes. Opener ‘Leather and Lace’ sets the tone, with a hectic beginning sweeping you off your feet before you know what has hit you, and this continues through to ‘Blue Gown’, with the space for breath between songs small but welcome.
But this isn’t one of those quick albums that attempts to make you dizzy and smash your eardrums and little else. By ‘Cut Your Bangs’ you realise that there is something sad and sincere in the lyrics, forcing you back to the start to reconsider the opening pair. Once this moment of realisation has occurred, Torch Song spreads its wings into its true form, a mishmash of pop and punk and poetry. Sincerity and honesty set this aside from the usual ‘Let’s Fuck Shit Up’ garage rock bands, and allows Radiator Hospital to achieve something with much greater nuance and depth (while still having fun).
The lyrics are displayed as prose on the Bandcamp page and reading them really helps the narrative of Torch Song to stand out. A tale of love punctuated with joy and regret and depression, the story is highly detailed yet curiously vague, with names and genders left unclear, leaving a You and a Me and the feelings that You and Me always seem to share. The result is something which feels highly personal but could be applied to anyone. It’s highly personal for everybody.
“We walked further than I thought we would. You looked at me like I was your way out, I looked at you, thought I’d never stop lookin’.”
The Torch Song LP is out now on Salinas Records. Order it here!