Love Is All – A Hundred Things That Keep Me Up At Night
I only learned about Love Is All this year when a random commenter claimed that a Shout Out Louds tracks (Impossible) was a rip off of Love Is All’s Felt Tip. Since checking out Felt Tip, I instantly became a fan even if more of their music was much more lo-fi and the vocals of Josephine Olausson were even more piercing at times.
With their release of “A Hundred Things That Keep Me Up At Night”, I was pretty excited to hear what Love Is All could pull off this time around. After hearing their first song “Wishing Well” I was pretty optimistic. Just like the previous album (Nine Times The Same Song), I tend to enjoy the songs near the end of the album much more then the first half. Instantly the first song I liked was “A More Uncertain Future” which has a simple but catchy wind instrument tune while Olausson and Sparding exchange vocals for a fun romantic-craved duet.
Anyway, Love Is All show off a lot of similarities to their previous release despite changing topics of being bored to being worried. One of the first things I noticed is that they really like challenging the ear drums to kick things off. By challenging the ear drums, I don’t mean its bad in anyway but they play an incredibly loud and dirty sound on New Beginning and Give It Back comparable to Talk X4, and Ageing Had Never Been His Friend. It does revert back to simple clean indie pop by the time Last Choice plays. I don’t really have a problem with the first two tracks, it’s still good music it’s more likely that because I prefer the poppy-er tracks compared to the more aggressive ones that the tracks later in the album I find better.
Overall it’s a very strong album, that doesn’t quite match their debut but that’s only due to nitpicking. I personally don’t like the album as much but it doesn’t mean there isn’t as much to like. The music is similar to what made Love Is All popular among blogs and critics. It’s rough around the edges style mixed in with pop sensibilities allow Love Is All to give off a vibe that many bands simply can’t find. The creative edge will always be there for Love Is All and that simply makes them stand out.
Rating: 4.25
Very good album, perhaps narrowly missing on a best of the year nomination.
Love is All and the Crystal Stilts are in town for a show on Thursday night. I definitely need to get out of the house and check this show out.
A More Uncertain Future by Love Is All
Wishing Well by Love Is All
Tags: album
