The Radio Dept. have been known to pay tribute to their influences, from My Bloody Valentine (during the early shoegaze days) to synthpop aficionados the Pet Shop Boys. And while the Swedish trio have become experts at making soothing tunes that could be considered perfect travel music, some of the lyrics accompanying their charming melodies seem to get overlooked.

Last September, the band released a single entitled “The New Improved Hypocrisy,” containing lyrics attacking their country’s government during election time. Members Johan Duncanson and Martin Larsson recently sat down with AUX to explain the motive behind writing such a political song and how this one follows another candid number called “Freddie and the Trojan Horse.”

“Frederick Reinfeidt is our prime minister in Sweden and it’s about him,” Larsson said regarding the Morrissey-inspired track from 2009. “The government tried to pose as a workers party… it was just a fraud and people were really fooled by it.”

“The New Improved Hypocrisy is an attack on the same party,” Duncanson added. “Not our prime minister specifically, but the whole alliance of right wing parties in Sweden. We’ve written a couple of other songs that could be considered political, but not as outspoken as those two. We don’t want it to get in the way of the music.”

After “The New Improved Hypocrisy” was released, the band experienced a wave of negative response in their homeland through various online outlets, but in the end said it was worth it.

“A lot of people were pissed of by it,” Duncanson continued. “Usually songs that are political and outspoken that take the conservative or right wing side are really bad. Whereas it seems like all the good musicians, filmmakers, and writers are kind of for the left and that pisses right wingers off, so they have to complain about it and say we suck. I find it very amusing.”

Despite the apparent pleasure the band gets out of receiving negative criticism, they are weary of continuing to write such forthright material intended to bring down the Reinfeidt-led liberal conservative Moderate Party.

“We don’t want to become Bono,” Duncanson says.