Wednesday, December 23rd, 2009

Shout Out Louds – Walls

After a year of touring behind their acclaimed second record, Our Ill Wills, the Shout Out Louds went their separate ways — singer/main songwriter Adam Olenius to Melbourne, Australia, keyboard/vocalist Bebban Stenborg to Los Angeles, drummer Eric Edman, bassist Ted Malmros and guitarist Carl von Arbin back to Stockholm – and took a much needed break. Olenius wrote many of the new songs in Australia in a tiny room, with a little synthesizer, an acoustic guitar and garageband on his laptop. He passed them on to the others who listened closely from their corners of the world, questioning and challenging him until the songs that make up Work had all passed the test.

“Walls” came first and then the rest. It’s interesting that Our Ill Wills was written at home but is all about travel while Work, written on the road with a non-Swede in the producer seat for the first time, is all about home. For the songs on Work, the band stripped their sound down, lost the percussionist and string section and kept things organic, unadorned and to the point.