Review Summary: You said it was love, I said I'd like you to be mine
It's easy to draw the line and say that The Sounds were never a particularly talented group in any aspect, save for their ability to write music. Doting from post-punk beginnings and later into syrupy sweet pop, they were always about five years behind the competition and playing spit-shined new wave in the new millennium that drew the image of Blondie with the works of The Killers. Despite the ill-fated timing, somehow they had everything come together for their sophomore effort
Dying To Say This To You, raising the question, how did they do it? Because those who haven't heard of the Sounds have likely heard The Sounds anyway without their consent, with producer Jeff Saltzman (of The Killers and Blondie of course) polishing numbers like the eccentric "Hurt You," which was rampantly featured in Geico commercials featuring cavemen, and their debut hit "Living in America" being featured in multiple video games. Their lineup has miraculously remained unchanged through their entire career, and yet any foray into their discography past
Dying To Say This To You only confirms that the members were straight up abducted and replaced with lifeless husks from another dimension.
It's easy to be fooled by the pop approach here. Keyboard player Jesper Anderberg foreshadows each song's melody right from the start, and the respect really goes to spunky vocalist Maja Ivarsson for demanding listeners take them seriously through a tour of concise and slick pop rock songs. Aside from the bookend songs the album is, foremost, a series of snapshots into pivotal moments in relationships, and strangely no other album by The Sounds manages to have this theme or even be as focused and conceptual in this manner. The piano ballad "Night After Night" paints the story of once fruitful love that culminates in a painful breakup. "Queen of Apology" is the pain of falling in love regrettably, and as someone that pushes people back to the platonic age through such a coping mechanism, with "24 Hours" being the day the other person attests their love in return. "Painted By Numbers" is possibly the greatest song The Sounds will ever make, melodically fascinating and enchanting with a mornful tone, about one half of a couple accepting that they will never be as happy as the other, but affirming their completeness by having them in their life.
Even in their moodier moments, The Sounds know how to keep things upbeat. Maja gives a furious tone when she isn't setting a sexy edge for classy parties, being crass enough to drop an F-bomb in "Ego," a vengeful farewell that has Maja admitting to cheating while name dropping an ex for a final twist of the knife. Then there is the underlying sexual energy herein that drives this album, further evidenced by the fiery delivery of the infamous lyrics "Don't stop, push it now and I will give it all to you." With a name as bizarre as "Tony the Beat," this upbeat jaunt couldn't be anything but an anagram for Eat By The Ton, which makes sense considering it is obviously about oral sex, complete with Maja's encouraging "Get down and do what you've been told." And if that wasn't the focal point that cemented The Sounds as the party band for celebrity weddings, the accompanying music video for the song features a slow panning camera through a party of privacy booths, whilst drawing a parallel to the cover which features DJ Leigh Lezark of The Misshapes and her friend along with some additional sapphic-romantic subtlety. That checks out with Maja being bisexual and stating her love for women around a time when she was plastered in magazines as one of the world's hottest female musicians, but it only brings to mind that the The Sounds dropped all their sexual and romantic tensions with this album and never revisited them.
