Shout Out Louds

Sweden: it’s definitely a country that produces band who know how to write a cracking pop song. And there’s such a variety of bands too, approaching their writing through many different genres. One band that doesn’t over complicate things is Shout Out Louds: they’ve been writing great indie pop songs since 2005’s Howl Howl Gaff Gaff with a casual brilliance that many bands would kill for. Adam Olenius and his band play music that’s a little folk pop, recalling a variety of 60s bands through his simple harmonies but also taking in darker influences – the main one being the music of The Cure. Shout Out Louds don’t rush things (they take their time when recording albums, and their latest Optica is just album number four in over ten years) and their music is often pitched mid-tempo, allowing us to slowly be seduced by Olenius’ song writing. When the band plays live it tends to get slightly more raucous, the passion imbued in these songs spilling over into more loose renditions of familiar songs. The duo of songs to look out for are ‘Very Loud’, which barrels along on a brilliantly unstoppable beat, and The Smiths jangle of ‘Please Please Please’ on which Olenius sounds very much like Robert Smith (another Smith!), pleading irresistibly to the watching crowd. The opportunities to watch Shout Out Louds can be few and far between, but it’s one you shouldn’t miss when the time comes.