The Sounds, ‘Dying to Say This to You’
By user • Mar 31st, 2006 • Category: Album Reviews
If The Sounds set out to make an intelligent pop record with intensely thoughtful arrangements of dynamic melodies, the band succeeded.
The Swedish quintet’s follow-up to 2003′s “Living In America” is more sonic. The layers of synthesizers and guitar hooks bleed together with the consciousness that fun records don’t have to be low-brow.
The Sounds’ refreshingly admit catchy songs are meant to get stuck in your head. And it’s this blatantly obvious, but often denied, confession that helped craft a record both punk savvy and new-wave sensible.
With chiming guitars on “Song With A Mission,” swirling keys on “Paint By Numbers,” dance grooves like “Hurt You” and delicate ambiance on tracks like “Night After Night,” the band’s sophomore release incorporates a wider scope than its debut but at the same time sounds more cohesive.
While contemporary dance punk acts align themselves with genre forefathers Gang of Four, subtle nods to disco separate The Sounds as the heirs to the Blondie and Missing Persons thrones.
Maja Ivarsson and her band mates pieced together a record that is neither too challenging nor too accessible. By ignoring the peripheral trappings that come with being concerned with how songs may be perceived, the group recorded 11 tracks that are just what they wanted – smart, sexy and urgent.
And that desire to self-entertain is why “Dying To Say This To You” is so unabashedly confident.
Even if the tightly packaged 35 minutes don’t break any new ground for either The Sounds or in the pantheon of rock ‘n’ roll, it can still sound great.
In this case it does.
Northern Star, March 31, 2006
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