Shout Out Louds "Howl Howl Gaff Gaff" (Capitol)
By Emily Trinks
Wednesday. Jun 01, 1:09 AM
So delightfully poppy that you'll want to mainline it.

On a Friday afternoon in late February, I found myself wandering down Drottninggatan in central Stockholm with a friend, desperately looking for a pair of boots. On my quest (the journey is always more fun than the destination, you know), we wandered into a store called Blammo! that had all this ridiculously fun, completely unnecessary, and cooler than what we have here (ie. “Swedish”) merchandise.

We were poking around, picking through the vinyl handbags and sparkly legwarmers when this song came on. This delightfully poppy song that made you want to spend all summer driving around with your best friends (windows rolled down, of course), going absolutely nowhere, singing at the top of your lungs, and having the best time ever.

We looked at each other: “who IS this?”

We asked the very Swedish salesgirl, since she was singing (“I’m so happy, oh so happy, but again, I’m always sad” from “100 Degrees” in this candy-coated voice) and dancing along.

“Shout Out Louds! They're Swedish!” She went back to singing and bopping along.

I immediately fell in love with that song.

I literally wrote home about that song and about that band.

I wanted to mainline that song.

I wanted it on my life-soundtrack.

The song I heard in Blammo! was “100 Degrees,” off of Shout Out Louds’ full-length debut Howl Howl Gaff Gaff, and probably the standout track on the album. The rest of the record is delightfully sweet, major-key indie pop. It’s not too twee, not too wimpy: earnest, but not completely neutered. Now, I’m a sucker for well-crafted pop songs with polished hooks and PG-emotion – probably much more than the next girl – so this stuff is my manna. And I probably like it more than I should because I have a few days worth of fond memories to attach to this band.

However, whether Shout Out Louds intended to or not, they’ve created perfect background music. It's palatable. It sounds “cool.” It’s vaguely familiar, but you aren’t sure if you’ve heard it. Is this The Cardigans? Built To Spill? That’s not The Strokes, is it? No, it’s not…

I can't listen to any of Howl Howl Gaff Gaff without picturing imaginary scenes from The OC, and – in fact – “But Then Again No” was featured on the May 5th episode (“Seth & Summer admit their transgressions to each other in the student lounge. Summer says that it shouldn't have to be so hard”). Hell, the whole album could be The OC Mix Vol. 5.

I know that these songs will be appropriated by corporations to sell stuff, be it television shows, cars, movies, clothes, whatever.
And we won't mind because 1) it’s Swedish, 2) these aren’t bad songs to have stick in your head, and 3) they won’t stick too long anyways.
www.shoutoutlouds.com
www.capitolrecords.com

Click here to buy this album on iTunes!

Click here to download the iTunes jukebox application for Macintosh or Windows!

Emily Trinks

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