Sweden has given us both IKEA and the Shout Out Louds. They both offer five-piece sets but one of them comes already assembled. The indie gem that is the Shout Out Louds has garnered a larger following outside of the band’s home country where house music continues to be mainstream, according to the three Swedish people I know.
The Shout Out Louds are back with their third album, “Work,” a 10-song follow-up to their 2007 hit sophomore album, “Our Ill Wills.” These two albums are as different as a Costco hot dog and an IKEA hot dog … very different.
The stripped-down, bare-bones sound of “Work” may indicate that the band’s maturing, as do lyrics such as “I took too many pills and wrote my will just to get to you” on the first single, “Walls.” All 10 songs are undoubtedly beautiful, but overall, many of the qualities that made “Our Ill Wills” stand out are missing this time around.
Most strikingly absent is lead singer Adam Olenius’ soulful, unpredictable voice that he appears to have traded in for a more refined but lackluster one. As leader of the pack, Olenius’ lukewarm sound spreads to all aspects of the music and into the overall product.
This is surprising since Phil Ek, who takes credit for various Fleet Foxes and The Shins tours de force, produced the album. Ek keeps the calm that the aforementioned bands are praised for, but “Work” verges on sacrificing too much of what was working for the Shout Out Louds.
One of the best parts of “Our Ill Wills” was sole female vocalist Bebban Stenborg’s spotlight in the song “Blue Headlights.” Her calm, commanding voice was a great foil to Olenius’ less traditional one which dominated the album. She is much less prominent on “Work” and can only be heard in the background.
What can be heard throughout the majority of the album, however, is the recurrent theme of separation and struggle. Perhaps the band members’ dispersal across the globe in places such as Los Angeles and Stockholm while Olenius wrote the songs from Australia contributed to the feeling of separation. And perhaps the struggle comes from the complicated task of keeping things simple.
But while they aim to communicate their own sound in its most organic form, they somehow manage to sacrifice a bit of themselves and sound like other bands of their genre.
The introduction to “Fall Hard” is reminiscent of Minus the Bear’s harmonizing chords on “Highly Refined Pirates,” but it soon melds into something to the likeness of Stars with its ever-subtle use of soft horns.
The marriage of these sounds from two bands that are successful in their own rights makes for a fine song, but it’s missing one key ingredient: the Shout Out Louds’ own sound.
As the band redefines its sound, “Work” marks a step in a new direction for the Shout Out Louds. What that direction will lead to is hard to tell, but here’s looking to the future.
Has the “Candle Burned Out” for our beloved Swedes, as the title to track five suggests? Far from it.
Rather, it would be more accurate, and hopeful, to look to a line from track six, “Throwing Stones,” that declares, “If you think I’m slowing down, no I’m not slowing down.”
E-mail Mohtasham at smohtasham@media.ucla.edu.