Nine Times That Same Song — Love is All
What's Your Rupture?
2006
Rating:


Love is All knows what love is and this post-punk band from Scandinavia wants to show you. "Nine Times That Same Song" isn't a schmaltzy collection of ballads but a cacophonous whirlwind through the complexities of experiencing love.

The clackety clack and "One more time!" shouts that open "Talk Talk Talk Talk" are a call for the end of monotonous chatter. "Spinning and Scratching" opens with the riff from The Jam's "Going Underground" and contains "Happy Together" "ba-ba-bahs" for a raucous ballad where Josephine Olausson commands, "Tell me all!" "Used Goods" is a stalker reveling in the knowledge that the object of her affection likes the same cheese as her. The Shangri-Las melody of "Turn the Radio Off" is the sound of someone fed up. The cyclical nature of relationships is initially bemoaned and then celebrated on "Make Out Fall Out Make Up." "Busy Doing Nothing" is an unlikely post-break-up song, with Olausson watching a "five movie marathon" and listening to the same song nine times in a row all while bassist Johan Lindwall pogos like Gang of Four and Fredrik Eriksson provides Essential Logic with a skronky wail on his saxophone. "Felt Tip" is purely lovely, flowing on Lindwall's complex bass line that's fitting for the refrain, "Step right on the beat." "Ageing Had Never Been His Friend" features Olausson keeping her lover in the freezer. On "Turn the TV Off," Olausson finally gets over her lover and sets out to try again while "Trying Too Hard" is mea culpa of sorts.

But Love is All never does that. A promising punk band along the lines of the similar female-fronted, saxophone-featuring X-Ray Spex, Sweden's Love Is All is wise enough to know that love is messy, repetitive, strange and wonderful — and Love Is All is all of this.

Posted Friday, December 22, 2006

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