The Sounds: Weekend (Album Review) at Why So Blu?

The Sounds: Weekend (Album Review)

October 29th, 2013 by Gerard Iribe

In what will be a culmination of ten years worth of albums and fifteen years since they formed in a small town in Sweden, The Sounds will hit the Fall of 2013 running with their fifth studio album entitled: Weekend. The indie rock/new wave outfit has unleashed their latest offering to the world via physical compact disc and digital download (I pray that a vinyl version will be released in the near future). Having just seen the band last week perform at the sold-out final U.S. mini-tour show at The Belasco Theatre in Downtown Los Angeles, I knew I had to take to the interwebs and Why So Blu? and share my thoughts on their new album. Sit back, relax, pour yourself a cup of tea, and come with me on this Weekend journey.

Album

The Sounds have been rocking and rolling for the past 10 years (they’ve been a band for 15) – traveling the world and playing to sold out shows in just about every country on Earth since their inception. I first discovered the band when I was watching the bonus features on my Final Destination 2 DVD and saw their video for Seven Days A Week from their debut album called Living In America. I became a casual fan and then my interest was piqued again when their second album called Dying To Say This You was released in 2006. That album had several stand out electronic infused hits that pretty much cemented the band in the music world’s consciousness.

Fast-forward to 2009 when their third album Crossing The Rubicon was released and it totally flew right by me. Maybe my music tastes had evolved or I had just tuned out in general. I would not come back into the fold until their fourth album was released called Something To Die For in 2011. Granted, I didn’t listen to it until early this year and have been jamming to it ever since. It was a breath of fresh air and all of their trademark elements had fused together to create this musical euphoria that I went back and scooped up the entire catalog for immediate absorption.

And here we are now, it’s Tuesday October 29, 2013, and the band’s fifth studio album, Weekend, has just been released to the world in various formats. How does it stack up to what’s come before it? Has the band broken new ground in their evolving sound? Define breaking ground for me if you can. Their first single ‘Shake Shake Shake’ was released in May of 2013 and it would be a long time before we heard anything else on when the new album would be released – we did get a sprinkle or two of new material here and there, as well. The band did play several new songs during the mini-tour, too.

Now let us get to the meat and potatoes of the matter. How does Weekend stack up? I will tell you. As I listened to the album and neared the end I noticed that the songs seemed very focused and almost melancholy-like. None of the tunes featured on Weekend, regardless of their titles; play off as depressing or angry. They do have a wave of sadness and new sense of hope that wash over them that I found very comforting. You can seriously jam to every tune without feeling like a dork. I remembered that Something To Die For was a much darker themed album that featured the band touching on trance and dance beats even though some of those songs were actually twisted love songs. Weekend has one song (Shake Shake Shake) that would fit that mold but is blended so well in terms of production and engineering that you could actually call that track the third part of The Sounds trilogy – the other two songs would be ‘The No No Song’ and ‘Yeah Yeah Yeah’ from their last album.

I do think that the dance and trance beats were kept to a minimum on Weekend and were more infused into the songs as opposed to saying that this is our trance song, this is our rock song, and this will be our ballad, etc. Sure, there are several songs that have beats, riffs, and pop to them, but all of the musical elements work together as a cohesive unit. You can listen to the title track and hear the ambient tones in the programming – it’s almost like a blanket. Every tune on Weekend has many musical production layers to it, which give it an almost “concept album” type of sound. Hell, they even throw in acoustic guitars into the mix and those songs that contain acoustic riffs aren’t necessarily acoustic songs. I do stop short in calling Weekend their magnum opus, because I have only listened to the album a couple of times in its entirety. I will say that there is a sense of maturity in the music and even in the lyrics. Maja’s vocals are really strong and the rest of the band does a great job in backing her up.

Weekend is still a rock ‘n roll album at its heart and it rocks out without compromise. It’s like the band itself. They truly are free to create whatever music suits them without studio interference (they own their music and label), so the sky is the limit. It would be unfair of me to say that if you hated the band’s last effort you will like this album. I will say that the band has achieved an album with a greater sense of musicianship and maturity than their previous works. This IS NOT a bad thing at all. The lady and gentlemen aren’t kids anymore, the musical playing field has been leveled and Los Sonidos are back in full force – they’re here to take names and kick ass…and not necessarily in that order. 😉

My favorite tracks so far: Great Day, Outlaw, Hurt The Ones I Love, Too Young To Die, Shake Shake Shake, Panic, and Animal.