Nothing Extra Nothing More - Day Five - TSOOL - Origin Vol. 1 - 2004
Here we have The Soundtrack Of Our Lives' fourth album Origin Vol 1. Before this album, I had never heard of this group. In fact, I am lucky that I even fell upon it. I was buying the new Bloc Party album at the local record shop, and this album was on the wall of new releases next to it. The cover intrigued me, and I had never heard of them before. The store had the disc on sale for 10.99, so I picked it up for the hell of it. I figured if it sucked, I'd just trade it back or something. Come to find out, I like it BETTER than Bloc Party's album.
Having been around for about ten years already, I was surprised to hear such a fresh and energetic sound from this Swedish band. The songs are hard and chug along like a train. The melodies are sharp and catchy, without sounding poppy. It's hard to classify such an album, as it's reminiscent of Classic Rock/Progressive Rock from the 70s, but with a 21st century alternative style. Vocally, they are strong, and dark and "scratchy(?)". It's hard to pinpoint what they sound like, yet they sound like someone I've heard before. Maybe a Kurt Cobain style.
This is the only album of theirs that I ever got, though. I haven't heard any of their other material. Just mentioning it now makes me want to hunt it down and see if it's all as good as this gem. Unfortunately, although there were b-sides to the singles of this album, they were all tracks from previous albums, which is disappointing, as I would have loved to have heard more from these sessions.
