Swedish indie-poppers Shout Out Louds have made a career out of catchy melodies and dance floor-ready grooves. The band’s 2005 debut Howl Howl Gaff Gaff set the stage for a promising and interesting young band toying with garage pop hooks and playful synth textures.
As the group progressed through two subsequent albums, its songwriting matured, but its cutesy pop sentiments lost their luster.
Optica, the band’s latest effort, is a faithful testament to ’80s pop. Lacking true vision, the album sprawls through hollow melodies that its dry production fails to embellish. Optica feels like the work of an exhausted band simply going through the motions.
The majority of _Optica_’s tracks play like incomplete sketches. The dreamy synth number “Glasgow” drags on through thunderous drums and curious background vocals before front man Adam Olenius’ trivial lyrics enter in anticlimactic fashion.
The repetitive melody of “Burn” and aimless lead guitar on “14th of July” feel tired and bland.
Flashes of Shout Out Louds’ flare for the pure pop of its early recordings are evident on Optica, albeit bogged down and subdued by dense, irresolute tracks that fail to keep the listener’s ear.
Album opener “Sugar” illustrates where Optica misses the mark. Its thick backbeat and captivating guitar lead eventually descend to an extended outro marred by unnecessary strings, leaving the listener more confused than satisfied.
With Optica, Shout Out Louds seems to have made a concerted effort to work around its ability to write catchy songs in favor of a more diverse, but detrimentally less concise approach. Dive verdict: ??½
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