Aural Fixations

THE SOUNDTRACK OF OUR LIVES
Origin Vol. 1
(Republic/Universal)
For a lot of rock & roll fans, the arrival of the latest record by The Soundtrack of Our Lives, one of Sweden's greatest exports, is a major event. (You'll have to ask Universal why they decided to delay it a few months.) Fortunately for those of us who resent having hopes dashed, Origin Vol. 1 doesn't disappoint. For its fifth disk, the band has stripped its sound down, removing many of the layers that gave its prior music its lushness, bringing its recordings more in line with its live presence. The aggressive stomp of "Mother One Track Mind" and the surging power of "Bigtime" sound made for the stage, but work just as well coming out of stereo speakers. At the same time, the sextet has made its debt to sixties rock melodies more explicit than ever. The soaring pop tunes "Lone Summer Dream" and "Wheels of Boredom" mix folk rock and old-fashioned psychedelia so deftly they sound like covers of some long-lost Summer of Love obscurity. That's not to say TSOOL is indulging in pure retro stylings. This band has long mastered the art of subsuming its influences into its own widescreen personality; the dreamy ballad "Song For the Others," Big Rock epic "Transcendental Suicide" and timeless slice of dystopian psychedelia "Midnight Children" couldn't have come from anyone else. In "Royal Explosion (Part II)," the band even has the confidence to take a few potshots at the rest of the music industry, specifically "self indulgent lo-fi soldiers trying to play my game" and "self destructive hi-fi leaders trying to build a wall"—this is a band that aligns itself with nothing but its own vision of rock & roll, which is on full display here; Origin Vol. 1 doesn't have the holy-shit-what's-that impact of Behind the Music; it's simply a strong collection of hook-filled, energy-fueled rock tunes played like they matter. That's all anyone ever needs, right? Michael Toland [buy it]