Eye on Indie is a weekly column in which Emerald writer Alex Ruby provides his picks for the best indie albums to watch for in the upcoming week. This week’s selections include releases from The Radio Dept., Weyes Blood, and John K. Samson. 
The Radio Dept.: Running Out of Love (Labrador Records)
After six years and loads of legal trouble with its label, the Swedish dream-pop duo is back with its fourth album, Running Out of Love. While its songs remain atmospheric in their instrumentation and longing in its vocals, The Radio Dept. seems to have taken a less dreamy, more poppy approach to this album. Its synths and boards are less wall-of-sound and more slow club music, enticing its listeners to dance thoughtfully while thinking about the problems in society.
It’s an album about life in Sweden and “how our society seems to be in regression on so many levels,” the band said in a statement to Pitchfork magazine. Even the album cover portrays something political about the world we’re living in. What is this soldier really looking at? And why is she staring so longingly at it? These political and societal themes are juxtaposed by the dancey music, but The Radio Dept. makes it work in a really attractive way, making you want to listen to its messages and shoegaze-like aesthetics.

Listen if you like: Cocteau Twins, Ride, The Jesus and Mary Chain, Beach House
Weyes Blood: Front Row Seat to Earth (Mexican Summer)
Sounding like an experimental Joni Mitchell, Natalie Mering is the hauntingly beautiful, multi-talented, multi-instrumentalist behind Weyes Blood. She makes stunning, graceful music that seems like it’ll keep playing through infinity, especially the single “Do You Need My Love.”
Each song has an underlying weight of emotion and seriousness. All the instruments and sounds that you’d find in a typical folk record are there, but Mering expands on them, creating worlds for the listener to explore between each chord, baseline, note and syllable. Weyes Blood is the type of music that permeates through a dream where nothing makes sense but you’re oddly okay with the madness and calamity. If you need an album to listen to as you’re admiring the leaves falling from the hundreds of trees around campus, then you should definitely pick up Front Row Seat to Earth.

Listen if you like: Angel Olsen, Jessica Pratt, Julia Holter, Joanna Newsom
John K. Samson: Winter Wheat (ANTI)
In 2015, cherished Canadian indie rock band The Weakerthans unfortunately broke up after 18 years and four albums. Thankfully, frontman John K. Samson is still making music and this week marks the release of his second solo album, Winter Wheat. Like Conor Oberst’s Ruminations from last week, Winter Wheat is a thoughtful collection of songs following Samson’s intimate vocal stylings and acoustic guitar.
At the same time, it sounds similar to other Weakerthans albums, with its members collaborating on the album. Hell, “Winter Wheat” (the third song on the album) begins a lot like “One Great City!” off of the Weakerthans’ third album, Reconstruction Site, with Samson creatively describing a time and place as a guitar slowly plays in the background.
One of the best things about Samson and his songwriting is his ability to create a time and place for the listener to find a way into. The songs feel realized and broken-in, as if we’re treading on already-treaded ground.

Listen if you like: John Darnielle of The Mountain Goats, Craig Finn of The Hold Steady, Scott Hutchison of Frightened Rabbit, Will Sheff of Okkervil River.