The Soundtrack of Our Lives Albums (5)
What The Critics Say
Issuing a double album in the 21st century, with increasing industry focus on single tracks and ringtones, seems crazy at best, pretentious at worst. Communion, the fifth album by Gothenburg, Sweden's rock sextet the Soundtrack of Our Lives, proves that assertion to be dead wrong. This band has stubbornly followed an inner sense of direction that embraces paradox while using the very best of what rock & roll has to offer in order to create powerful music. Communion's 24 tracks are spread over two discs and its total playing time at over 90 minutes makes it longer than the Who's Quadrophenia or Pink Floyd's The Wall. Communion is a loosely based concept record. It addresses alienation and other difficulties of mass culture run amok with technological innovation, yet it unapologetically seeks -- and finds -- hope in the madness. Paradoxically, these songs all stand independently of one another, they aren't topically or musically heavy-handed, and most are catchy as all get out. They flit from hook-laden, psych-heavy guitar rock, a layered '60s-style uptempo pop that owes as much to Ray Davies and the Kinks, to the grandness of Arthur Lee and Love, as well as Townshend's gang, Syd Barret's Floyd, and the crunchy, soaring guitar rock of Television. And even as drenched in the past as this music is, it is utterly contemporary and relevant. There are no overblown -- or bloated -- conceited anthems here. Indeed, these songs start with the notion of acceptance, and look for connections in the chaos rather than point out the obvious. The tracks are basic rock tunes layered with effects and other sounds that never mask the basic structure of these rather simply driven guitar melodies. Go no further than the spacy, psych-drenched opener "Babel," with its thrumming bassline, hooky organ line with tribal drums, and counterpoint six-strings playing call and response with singer Ebbot Lundberg entering halfway through with his metaphysical: "We're here finalize/the friction of your rise/the twisting of your tongue/together with the sun/The language that we speak/Was spread out to complete/And communicate as one/So turn the towers of Babel on....So come on!" The beautifully multidimensional "Universal Stalker" follows with its harpsichords, acoustic and electric guitars, and Farfisa underlying Lundberg's gentle vocal. The music gradually increases in dynamic, tension, and tempo; it eventually explodes into full rock burn. The first disc also contains an utterly lovely, full-on band arrangement of Nick Drake's "Fly" that manages to transform the song into something of a big-smile, psych-pop wonder, thanks to jangling electric 12-strings and big tom-toms even as it retains the author's melody with simple elegance and integrity. Disc two begins with the tender, slide-driven pop rock of "Everything Beautiful Must Die," a zen meditation on acceptance set to a faux country backbeat even as its slippery Baroque psych-pop propels it forward. Communion ends with another gorgeous singalong number in "The Passover" (a song about waking up on the other side of transformation), but it could just as easily have concluded with the beautifully tender and largely acoustic "Lifeline," which in just over two minutes offers a confessional bit of instruction about surrendering to love. Communion is easily the most consistent yet visionary and expansive recording Soundtrack have released yet, and proves beyond the shadow of a doubt, they are, even without mass acceptance, an impressively grand rock band; they freely use rock's rich history not to make reference to their own record collections, but rather to further its reach, and that of expression itself, as necessary parts of everyday life. ~ Thom Jurek, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
Sweden's the Soundtrack of Our Lives have been swinging for the rock fences for a decade. Origin, Vol. 1, the band's second stateside-issued full-length, offers close, up-front proof of the inspiration for perseverance. These tracks are drenched with unabashed homages to TSOOL's heroes from rock's family tree, from the Beatles and the Rolling Stones to Love, pre-Tommy Who, the Doors, the Stooges, Barrett-era Pink Floyd, etc. And while it is true that TSOOL have dipped into the well before, on Origin, Vol. 1 they immerse themselves in it. The set opens with "Believe I've Found," a midtempo rocker. Echoes of psychedelic music from the ages waft through its mix, as Ebbot Lundberg traces through the wasteland of his past and underscores his new sense of mental and emotional equanimity without saying what it is. With a great hook, a roaring electric guitar and organ chorus, and poignant lyrics, it's one of the best tunes in the band's catalog. "Transcendental Suicide" comes right out of TSOOL's obsession with the Who, with a dramatic, tight-wristed strummed acoustic six-string flourish that gets eclipsed by an anthemic electric thrum and a propulsive bassline that rings above it all, driving the tune out of the groove and into the backbone of the listener. Lundberg spits his words, doing his best garage band wail à la Rob Younger from Radio Birdman. "Bigtime," the album's first single, is a bit more problematic. There isn't a riff and the song's hook is skeletal at best. Endlessly repetitive, it is also drenched in cheesy sequenced keyboards that are thankfully overshadowed by the electric guitars in the refrain and then eclipses itself in an orgy of noisy distortion in the bridge. Why it was chosen as a single is puzzling, to say the least. "Heading for a Breakdown" is a layered psych rock tapestry with a barely disguised riff from Buffalo Springfield's "For What It's Worth," while its overdose bass pummel displaces the hook and turns it over into a beautifully textured heavy pop song. The whomping "Mother One Track Mind" comes right out of the band's longtime Stooges worship -- and it works. Snarling, razor guitars overshadow Lundberg's vocal until the chanted distorto-groove chorus. "Midnight Children" features a guest duet vocal by Jane Birkin. Underscored by a minimal organ that threads the melody, Lundberg references Lou Reed as Birkin wafts and winds her way around his words and croons sweetly in the refrain. The Serge Gainsbourg influence on the cut is pronounced, but doesn't carry it off into parody. The hook feels organic and the duet is seamless. Ultimately, Origin, Vol. 1 is a look back through the past -- musically, personally, poetically, and culturally -- as a way of moving toward the future, celebrating its influence and shaking free of its baggage. TSOOL have arrived after a decade of carefully and meticulously crafting a passionate and compelling rock music that incorporates everything it finds genuine and necessary in pursuit of a music and lyricism that powerfully and beautifully articulate that which is less than obvious. ~ Thom Jurek, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
The third album from Sweden's Soundtrack of Our Lives is their most concise and rocking effort. After the daunting eclecticism of 1996's Welcome to the Infant Freebase and the trippy ethereality of 1998's Extended Revelation, the relatively straightforward psychedelic rock of Behind the Music is something of a surprise. The thumping and clattering opener, "Infra Riot," is one of the catchiest songs they've ever done, and things just build from there. The booming drums and sharply strummed acoustic rhythm guitars of "Sister Surround" bear a startling resemblance to late-'60s Stones, followed immediately by a pretty but tense acoustic interlude called "In Someone Else's Mind" that would not sound out of place on a Syd Barrett album, itself the precursor to "Mind the Gap," which recalls the more melodic moments of the post-Barrett Pink Floyd. The album goes on in this vein for just under an hour, with one terrific song after another that sounds immediately like some classic forebear (there are hints of the Stooges, Love, and even Zappa in spots), but has the presence and strength to stand up on its own merits. Behind the Music lacks the totality and sonic impact of Extended Revelation, but the songs are more consistently memorable. Impressive stuff, and probably the Soundtrack of Our Lives album to start with for all but the most devoted psych/prog fan. ~ Stewart Mason, All Music Guide
'Extended Revelation for the Psychic Weaklings of Western Civilization'
Release Date 1/1/1998
Tracks 16
Label Telegram
See Album Tracklist and Review
What The Critics Say
The full title of this album is Extended Revelation for the Psychic Weaklings of Western Civilization. The music itself is not as screamingly pretentious as the title. In fact, the music is pretty seriously wonderful. A bit more focused than the Soundtrack of Our Lives' exceedingly diverse debut, Welcome to the Infant Freebase, this hour-long effort focuses on the trippy and ethereal side of the group's musical personality. Echoes of turn-of-the-'70s Pink Floyd color many of the songs, especially the roiling instrumental opener "Regenesis." Elsewhere, a melodic quality akin to the Sell Out-era Who surfaces, particularly on "Safety Operation" and "Let It Come Alive." (Comparatively, the largely acoustic "Serpentine Age Queen" could almost be a Tommy outtake.) As before, Bjorn Olsson's sterling, ultra-atmospheric guitar work is the group's secret weapon (check out his lyrical instrumental interlude "Aqua Vera"), but the orchestral arrangements and unexpected keyboard and percussion accents make this album a richly textured and deeply satisfying listen. The music is somber almost to the point of humorlessness, and the lyrics will precipitate the rolling of eyes among some listeners, but this is '90s psychedelia at its finest. ~ Stewart Mason, All Music Guide
'Welcome to the Infant Freebase'
Release Date 1/1/1996
Tracks 20
Label Telegraph
See Album Tracklist and Review
What The Critics Say
That the Soundtrack of Our Lives originally envisioned their debut LP as a 50-song box set speaks volumes about Welcome to the Infant Freebase's creativity and scope -- although the completed album contains a mere 20 tracks, the band's dark, dramatic reconfiguration of rock & roll's elemental forces nevertheless echoes the majesty and ambitions of classic albums past. Opening with the brilliant "Mantra Slider," a serpentine epic which, along with the "Let's Spend the Night Together"-rewrite "Blow My Cool," evokes the Stones' late-60s efforts, Welcome to the Infant Freebase goes on to recall everyone from the Doors to Pink Floyd to Led Zeppelin, reinvigorating even the hoariest clichés while somehow managing to avoid the pitfalls of nostalgia; the key is that TSOOL never gives in to irony -- their affection for rock's traditions is genuine, and their desire to reinvent those traditions is pure. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Music Guide
