After seemingly finding success in the U.S. on Capitol, Sweden’s Shout Out Louds have found a home on mega-indie Merge for their second album, Our Ill Wills. It’s a good fit; their smart pop-rock fits alongside that of labelmates Arcade Fire and Spoon. Downplaying the garage guitars featured on debut Gaff Gaff Howl Howl, the new record is drenched in majestic melodic sweeps and bouncy ornate pop. From the building lead of “Tonight I Have to Leave It” to the whirring denouement of “Hard Rain,” the album is a near-perfect mix of melancholic emotion and musical euphoria. Singer Adam Olenius wears his heart in his Robert Smith–like warble, similarly evoking a certain amount of sentimentality in simple lines like “On my way home in the car you held my hand” (“Your Parents’ Living Room”), or loss more directly with “Your love is something I cannot remember” (“Impossible”). He’s backed by a confluence of twinkling piano lines, reverbed guitar riffs, cracking beats and strings that make each song at once epic and epochal. Our Ill Wills is nothing short of brilliant, and thus the only thing one could wish for is that the band was playing somewhere other than the Basement.
MP3: Tonight I Have To Leave It
LISTEN: Full Album Stream
