“The Comeback”
from the album Howl Howl Gaff Gaff
2005
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The Shout Out Louds have earned a curious distinction this year. Sure, the Swedish indie pop quintet has tramped the usual path toward alt-rock success. They’ve gained attention while supporting acts such as Kings of Leon and the Dears. Critics have praised their full-length debut, Howl Howl Gaff Gaff, for its melodic loveliness and heartsick intensity.
But the band has also been singled out for the striking likeness its frontman, Adam Olenius, bears to Max Fischer, beloved teen antihero of the film Rushmore. Both have something of the misguided Romeo about them, all hangdog passion and boyish ardor. And the way Olenius’s achy croak expresses that moodiness is a big part of his band’s winsome sound. While Olenius admits that their sincere, unfussy sensibility is due largely to early musical limitations, it’s also a conscious decision.
“When I wrote the songs, and when we discussed it and talked about the album, we just wanted it to sound like a debut,” Olenius says in a phone interview. “We had got some reviews, like, ‘Oh, it sounds too childish,’ but that’s what we wanted.”
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Their initial output was also shaped by a happy accident. When they first started practicing together as a band, they had a drum machine they didn’t know how to program. They were able to work out only two settings a simple rock beat and a slinky bossa nova rhythm. It was a fortuitous accident. The Latin influence kicked off their ongoing interest in mixing varied genres into their pop sound.
“We just got inspired by electronic music, jazz, and we just found that we had to make our music putting it on the edge, so to speak,” Olenius says.
In the hands of the five-piece singer-guitarist Olenius, guitarist Carl von Arbin, bassist Ted Malmros, keyboardist Bebban Stenborg, and drummer Eric Edman these influences emerge subtly, amid sweet pop that evokes the Psychedelic Furs and Echo and the Bunnymen. “Very Loud” is dominated by a cantering beat, lovelorn vocals, and melancholy keyboards, while “Oh, Sweetheart” is an off-kilter rock ballad with sawing strings and a full-throated chorus. Some would say their mix of deft orchestration and emotional directness positions them alongside bands like the Arcade Fire. Olenius feels they’re the creative compatriots of acts like current tour-mates the Dears.
He has mixed feelings, however, about being lumped into a larger Swedish rock invasion that includes the epic, psychedelic bombast of the Soundtrack of Our Lives and the kinetic garage rock of the Hives.
“I think people mention, like, Soundtrack of Our Lives and the Hives, but I don’t think we have the same sound as they [do],” he says. “So, I think it’s just easy to maybe put us in the same group. I mean, the Hives are doing great at what they’re doing, and Soundtrack of Our Lives as well. But I think we have our own sound.”
For all their differences, Olenius does believe that Swedish bands share a certain something that crosses genres and sonic inclinations, something influenced by the national reverence for art and culture, and, perhaps, the Nordic chill.
“I think there is a Swedish sound,” he said. “It’s really hard to put your finger on what it is, but maybe the cold Swedish winters really do something to us. Maybe it has something to do with the melancholy sound.”