Three years after Britpress guaranteed them worldwide stardom, Soundtrack of Our Lives have to be wondering where their friends have gone. While Swedish cohorts the Hives were touring worldwide and appearing on MTV award shows, SOOL's fame collapsed. The band's fourth album, Origin 1, won't reverse that trend.
To disparage SOOL as derivative of bands like the Rolling Stones and Stooges would be a compliment; these guys would kill just to be the Dandy Warhols. The band's thin "Really, We're Swedish!" schtick-- in concert SOOL are decked out in kaftans and strut around like the Hives-- only makes things worse. When frontman Ebbot Lundberg shouts "We're gonna last forever/ We're gonna make you feel so high" on "Transcendental Suicide", the song exudes the rock'n'roll intensity of a middle school D.A.R.E. assembly.
But forget about style and charisma: This band has no hooks and no energy. First single "Bigtime" has a throbbing bassline, huge drums, and catchy guitar riff, but no build-up. "Heading For a Breakdown" suffers from the same: After its swelling verse and pre-chorus, the band misses its opportunity to deliver a timely, fist-pumping chorus, instead settling to plateau with a discreet refrain. Speaking of which, Lundberg might have the worst chorus vocals I've ever heard. As he raises his voice, his raspy baritone dissipates into an extremely loud whisper and gets lost in the mix.
This album's two best tracks-- two of the best of SOOL's career-- are actually slow-paced, folksier numbers: "Believe I've Found" and "Midnight Children (Enfants De La Nuit)". "Midnight Children" glides smoothly on an ascending bassline, while "Believe I've Found" lurches mysteriously through a minor folk progression, haunted by a thick, bluesy electric lead. Because neither song builds to obligatory detonation, Lundberg is more focused on melody. As a result, the songwriting is more unpredictable and the results are more rewarding-- neither of which can be said for the rest of the record.
