Seemly ‘Flanders meets Chicago’ collaboration between America’s Two Brothers and Belgian’s Urthel Brewery places up-front hard cider sharpness next to Flemish-styled cherry sourness. Beet-sugared cranberry tartness seeps into funky fungi-molded wildflower yeast midst while tart hard-candied green apple backdrop fortifies lemon-dried white grape piquancy and dehydrated orange lull.
Sometimes hanging loose and taking a little time off just to relax gives musicians the opportunity to alleviate the burden of high-pressured tour travel, hefty recording fees, online merchandizing, and demanding recording deadlines. That’s what happened to Sweden’s indie pop punk darlings, Love Is All, after leaving their boutique record label for a short sabbatical following many exhausting live dates supporting a solid sophomore album.
Relaxed and recharged, composing drummer Markus Gorsch and lyrical keyboard comrade Josephine Olausson (with guitarist Nicholaus Sparding, bassist Johan Lindwall, and saxophonist Ake Stomer in tow) started casually laying down tracks with no firm plans for any of these offhandedly conceived tunes to see the light of day. Using a primal 24-track analog tape machine to capture the glorious results proved fortuitous since these song ideas formed the core of energetic breakthrough, Two Thousand And Ten Injuries.
The rewarding follow-up to a few more numerically-dubbed offerings, formative ’05 debut, Nine Times That Same Song, and its ensuing supplement, ‘08s A Hundred Things Keep Me Up At Night, this third set cuts like a knife when Olausson’s roughed-up yelps and banshee wails emulate snotty punk revelers of yore. Love Is All then counter such roughhewn tendencies with an innate ability to indulge tuneful melancholic pop.
A massive sugar rush conjuring ‘60s bubblegum, exhilarating highlight “Kungen” brings snappy multi-harmony choruses, loud tribal drums and ascending guitar riffs to the party, creating ecstatically orgasmic climaxes that resonate forever. Nearly as magnificent, “Bigger, Bolder” co-opts rudimentary ‘70s-styled X-Ray Spex punk vigor for nervy riot grrrl-derived vindictiveness with its charging six-string scrum, chewy bass melody, and a blurting sax wail that’s vital to Burundi beat-driven dive-bomb, “Early Warnings,” and dulcet jangle, “Dust.”
The remainder of Two Thousand And Ten Injuries has a more accessible lullaby-like dreaminess that’s just left of the finest mainstream commercialism. For starters, twee xylophone tinkles trail the echo-laden guitar leads fortifying giddy li’l ditty, “Repetition.” Then, minimalist Slits-inspired cut-up, “False Pretense,” and alluring Cathedral organ-imbibed ballad, “Take Your Time,” compete favorably against lilting no wave funk trinket, “A Side In A Bed.”
Inspiringly, Love Is All has managed to craft a dozen rewardingly eclectic numbers developed completely on their own premises and conditions with Olausson’s knob-twisting co-producing husband (and former Aislers Set guitarist) Wyatt Cusick.
What’s with all the numbered titles for each album so far?
MARKUS: Josephine comes up with all the names. She puts numbers in the titles for our signature. We’re working with a new record label, Polyvinyl, and when we made the album, we didn’t know if we’d ever get another record deal. So we made the songs whenever we wanted and just jammed together. We had no rules concerning what the songs would sound like. We didn’t know anyone outside the band would ever hear it. We just satisfied our own desires. Part of Two Thousand And Ten Injuries title had to do with Josephine’s tendency to injure herself by accident, falling down the stairs in a Switzerland hotel, bumping her face against the door and wearing a Band-aid on her nose when we had to shoot a video the next day. It looked ridiculous. Also, on a deeper philosophical thought beyond the accidents is the hope for something to turn out one way but it doesn’t. It deals with disappointments and accidents in a comical way. She thinks working early in the morning makes things go wrong.
I was really into heavy metal. Twisted Sister’s “I Wanna Rock,” bands like that were my idols. They made me want to play electric guitar. Eventually I became a drummer. Nowadays, I don’t listen to that much, but I appreciate the energy. You don’t hear that in music nowadays. As for Josephine, she discovered the punk and indie DIY scene when she was young. She was into English punk like X-Ray Spex, Lung Leg, and some other obscure ones with one vinyl 7″ release. Also, the riot grrrl scene interested her. My underground punk was the Buzzcocks and The Fall – more well-known masculine punks.
Some people say that sounds like the Strokes. I like them, but we don’t sound like them at all. That’s not our goal.
Kungen is Swedish for ‘king.’ The reason it’s called that is because it was a working title that was unchanged. We’re from Gothenburg. It’s similar in relation to Stockholm as New Jersey is to New York – a little brother with an inferiority complex. It’s a big city with great bands but no true cultural focus or art institution. It’s a backwater fun place to be. Anyway, we were on a tour bus one day and saw the royal family with lifeguards and security wearing black glasses stepping out of a building. It was very unlikely in this industrial town. Everyone was shocked seeing that outside the bus. The song points out the absurdly surreal ridiculousness of Sweden’s ancient Medieval hierarchy. Despite being one of the most progressive institutions in the world, we have a king and queen for sentimental reasons. Also, the Zombies adventurous Odyssey & Oracle was inspirational. It’s an album everyone in the band loved even though we all have different musical tastes. We wanted to do something with powerful wordless choruses. Somehow, it corresponds to the monarchic system.
I’m not sure I know that beat, but it’s on 60% of the songs. (laughter) As a guitarist originally, I don’t consider myself a real drummer. I’m just looking to have fun coming up with a new style of playing. In the last three to five years, I noticed popular music had that type of beat due to the minority population from Iran and Iraq working at pizza parlors playing Arabic music. I thought that beat was taking over the world and tried to incorporate and adapt that into our songs. The straight four-on-the-floor beat.
I only joined at the end and wasn’t really involved in the making of the songs. I became their drummer on a few tours. They were a poppy bubblegum band. Originally, it was Josephine, another girl, and a guy making carefree drum-machined New Order-like pop with two maniac girl singers.
We like to do everything ourselves from recording to artwork. He’s a live soundman who helped us build a studio and is a good sound engineer. It was very natural to work with him during every step of the process. He was in (San Francisco-based indie rockers) Aislers Set and we became friends during the Girlfriendo days. He moved to Sweden and got married to Josephine. We communicate well.
If we make another album, it won’t be numbered like the first few. I’m done with schemes. On a musical level, I’m not sure where we’re going. I don’t have theories. It just sort of happens.
Boggling diacetyl buttering, phenolic hop fizz and gnarly vegetal astringency plague musty sour-malted straw-hued moderate body. After modest barley-rice sweetness counters mild lemon bittering and grassy-hopped repose, coarsened corn-oiled finish impedes progress. Withered white bread spine collapses and wavered herbal nuances barely register.
Bold ‘ultra rare’ ’09 collaboration between California’s Stone Brewery and UK’s Brewdog could peculiarly pass for a creamy black chocolate-y oyster stout. Magnificent full-bodied cola-hued IPA brings bitter pine-sapped resin-hopped dry-fruited expectancy to chocolate-roasted coffee-soured burnt sugar malting. Citric cherry-plum illusions drape peat-smoked molasses, alleviating ashy charcoal acridity invading pine-sapped anise-stained mocha finish. In a class by itself.
On tap, soapy washed-out yellow-cleared fruit ale lacks luster. Brazilian acai berries, a dietary antioxidant, never bolsters pallid softie. Fizzy dry-hopped raspberry, blueberry, cranberry, and cherry souring mires subsidiary lemon-limed green apple, Granny Smith apple, and white peach tartness. Dull white-breaded spine of arid light body only makes things worse.
Soft sandalwood undertone seeps into red-orange-fruited cask version of brewer’s locally popular pale body. Blanched orange peel and grapefruit rind bittering dissolves into tart apple-tangerine-peach sedation above herbal nuance. Tertiary mango, pineapple, and passion fruit illusions provide delicate backup.
On tap, well-rounded golden-clouded Belgian-styled white ale rallies behind luscious candi-sugared banana-clove frontage and heady 9.5% alcohol whir. Creamy vanilla-butterscotch midst further sweetens ripe fruited sassafras as tangy lemon-aided apple, peach and orange illusions counter white-peppered hop spicing.
On tap, lustrous golden amber full body drapes floral-spiced hops into massive fruity indulgence. Tangy peach-cherry-tangerine frontage and subsidiary banana-bruised pineapple-mango-grapefruit tropicalia regale subtle cereal-grained toasting. Resinous pine seeps into alcohol-burnt fructose finish. But advertised rice influence is negligible.
On tap, overwhelmingly slick sour ale lacquers blueberry pancake theme with cloying blueberry syrup stickiness. Sun-dried oaken cherry and cranberry tartness reaches solvent pomegranate acridity countering pasty saccharine-like sucrose slackness and cake-battered fruited malts.
Smooth jet black schwarzbier with egg-shelled cherry wood head recalls finer Baltic porters. Brown-sugared cocoa-dried Baker’s chocolate frontage receives subtle peat-smoked peanut-shelled walnut, cola nut, and Brazil nut bittering to offset sweet toffee, caramel, and cookie dough sweetness. Oily coffee souring, mild espresso dirge, and peat-smoked mineral-grained soy nuance add depth to a creamier, more assertive black lager than usual ill-defined rivals.
Heady bourbon piquancy positively affects affluent Cassis-styled blackberry-curdled oak-casked barleywine. Dank cellar waft picks up port, burgundy, and Merlot illusions that settle at frantic cherry-soured prune-raisin-fig peak. Red wine aficionados may enjoy its sharply tannic red, purple, and black grape tartness. On tap 2011, months of aging changed the profile, complexion, and complexity of this wonderfully vintaged ‘big beer.’ Tasting like a Mai Tai with its coconut-pineapple conflux, the newfound caramelized whiskey malting and candied apple sash truly sweetened the deal.
Silken cola-hued ‘robust jobless recovery’ strong ale lacks expectant full-bodied assertion, but not persuasive character. Ashen piney-hopped nuttiness juxtaposes soft-watered cinnamon-spiced floral-fruited opening. Tangy grapefruit, pineapple, cherry and apricot fruitage revs up juicy bubblegum midst. Earthen red and purple grape esters bring mild bourbon-burgundy-port illusions to the surface by soft evergreen finish of limited ’10 release. On tap at Plank Pizza (2016), dark-roasted mocha nuttiness picked up more pronounced earthen hop-charred bittering and less fruit-spiced tangent.
