RADIO DEPT.

The Radio Dept. have announced a twentieth-anniversary vinyl reissue of Pet Grief, their sophomore album and one of the most quietly distinctive records in their catalogue.

Originally released on 12 April 2006, Pet Grief emerged from a period of false starts and reinvention. The band had already recorded much of a more electronic album before deciding that it felt too close to what was happening around them at the time. They put most of it aside and began again, bringing guitars back into the process and reconnecting with some of the melodic instincts behind Lesser Matters. But the result was not a return to Lesser Matters. Instead, Pet Grief became its cleaner, more restrained counterpart: twelve songs built from soft-focus synthesisers, programmed rhythms, piano, strings and guitars allowed to shimmer rather than overwhelm. What initially seemed like a very pop record later revealed itself as something calmer, mellower and sadder.

Around the same time, music supervisor Brian Reitzell approached The Radio Dept. about contributing music to Sofia Coppola's Marie Antoinette. The film ultimately featured three earlier Radio Dept. songs, while some of the unused music developed during that period found its way into Pet Grief.