Our Ill Will
Label: Merge
Length: LP
Media: CD
Format: Album
WorkNameSort: Our Ill Will
Carrying dismal verses that beg to be hollered from apartment windows, Our Ill Wills rises and falls brilliantly over a turbulent 48 minutes. The sophomore outing from Swedish popsters the Shout Out Louds is Cure-esque and sophisticated, with danceable rhythms and overdramatically enunciated lyrics. Early single/LP opener ‘Tonight I Have to Leave Itâ?� is packaged in all that renders Our Ill Wills so wonderful. Soaring violins abound; ‘Tonightâ?� (and all of Our) bears the production mark of Björn Yttling (of bigger-than-Jesus act Peter Björn and John). Yttling yanks off ‘Tonight’sâ?� lavish dress at the bridge so that singer Adam Olenius asks, ‘Why don’t you give love?â?� all breathless and feverish-like, as if someone had pushed him down the steps. More novel outbursts crown the somber ‘Impossibleâ?� (‘Your love is something I cannot rememberâ?�), and atop Yttling’s piano-taps on ‘You Are Dreaming,â?� Olenius calls to a long-gone hometown companion, ordering, ‘Don’t come back to Stockholm.â?� Our Ill Wills makes good on its negative promise repeatedly, and elegant string accompaniment softens the blow of remarks just miserable enough for the whole neighborhood to suffer. Just keep yelling and remind yourself that bottling up despair is really unhealthy.
This article appears in Sep 12-18, 2007.