Stockholm, Sweden’s Shout Out Louds made a name for themselves with their debut album, “Howl Howl Gaff Gaff,” gaining the attention of an international audience with an up-tempo blend of bright, driving guitars, singer Adam Olenius’ often melancholic vocals and enough Swedish pop sunshine to cause snow blindness.
It may have come as a surprise, then, when fans popped in the new album, “Our Ill Wills,” and heard a calmer, moodier Shout Out Louds. The album comes two years after international release of “Howl Howl Gaff Gaff,”

and the difference in sound could be attributed to a newfound maturity, a growing disillusionment with the world around them, or perhaps the Swedish winter finally took its toll.
Ted Malmros, the bass player and resident video director of the Shout Out Louds has a simpler solution: “Maybe we played live so much we were tired.”
The band has been busy enough, somehow finding time between numerous tours to record an album that, even on first listen, should ease the minds of listeners who might question a departure from the exuberant tunes on the first album.
“Our Ill Wills” does not completely rewrite the band’s sound – it expands it. The band sounds more comfortable with slower numbers, more willing to set Olenius’ earnest-sounding lyrics to instrumentals that sound inflected with the sorrow in his voice. The production on songs such as “Impossible” and “Normandie” underscores just how right the updated sound can feel, and this reflects, according to Malmros, an influence of Bjorn Yttling.
Yttling, best known as one of the members of the band Peter Bjorn and John, produced the new tracks that helped the band grasp the overall sound of the album, said Malmros, who worked previously with the trio while directing the video for its song “Young Folks.”
“I think we’re a band that really enjoys having a producer along on the project,” Malmros said. “I mean, somebody else to listen…because when you’re playing you kind of focus on your own instrument a little bit, I think everyone does, and it’s nice to have somebody else to just sit and listen and, ‘Oh, maybe you can do this and that.”
“It’s like a joint effort, all five plus Bjorn in the studio, we all just want the best result.”
Seemingly small decisions – a little extra percussion here, a harmony there – make “Our Ill Wills” the kind of classic Swedish pop that would hold its own on a shelf next to a stack of Jens Lekman albums. This is the result of the band’s love of experimentation, Yttling’s technical skill in the studio and, as always, a little help from their friends, Malmros said.
“Some of the percussion is really Bjorn style. (Bjorn) is really good with setting the drums, too. …He’s good at working the different formations of the kit,” Malmros said, adding that the band particularly likes to experiment with percussion.
“But we’ve been toying around, so it’s a bit of mix from (percussion) that we already had and some that, like John (Eriksson) from Peter, Bjorn, and John, came in and helped us put some down because he’s incredibly good with pace he could just, you know, one take and that’s it. For us, we’re a bit shakier so it takes a few takes so it was pretty convenient to have him help us out.”
Still, all the production genius in the world only does any good on an album that sounded good to begin with, which “Our Ill Wills” does through and through. And although it is impeccably produced, this Shout Out Louds album should sound just as sweet live, in the cozy confines of Eugene’s WOW Hall, where the band will play next Wednesday night.
[email protected]