Review Summary: New Wave? Post Punk? Pop Rock? I'll tell you this; if even one of these had The Sounds as their benchmark, no one would have listened to these genres.
The first encounter I had with The Sounds remains to this day a mystery. For the life of me, I can’t even remember how I learned about them but it doesn’t matter now, really. What matters is this nice debut of theirs. The Sounds are a Blondie derivative kind of band. They rock; but not
that sincerely, they have ‘punk aesthetics’; but only used as a background. And they are, most of all, a pop-oriented group, with seemingly catchy hooks and danceable grooves.
If you
really crave for this kind of music, grab a Blondie record. This band here is dispensable. First of all, vocals. Maja Ivarsson has a nice voice, but she doesn’t hold a candle to that other lady, Debbie Harry. The latter has a distinct personality while singing, alternating cuteness with aggressiveness in the blink of an eye, not to mention a raw, natural tone that is fitting perfectly with Blondie. Now you could argue that
’who cares if she’s fitting with Blondie, we’re talking The Sounds here!. But this is the point; The Sounds are identical to Blondie in style, so the voice of Harry would be more fitting to the band’s music, since she’s the prototype.
As for the rest of the members, they are as bland as you could imagine. No imagination in riffs or grooves…wait now, I said something about danceable grooves earlier, what was that about? Well, to be honest with you, the music
is danceable, but you would expect that from any pop-oriented group, wouldn’t you? There is no inspiration besides the modestly catchy drum beats and the fast paced nature of the tracks. Not to mention that even these ‘positive’ attributes, get bogged down because of the too slick production. This is a band with punk influences god damn it! Why is the sound so slick and manufactured? Take
Hit Me and tell me it isn’t fake punk aesthetics at its finest. The form is there; the ‘angry’ guitars, the simple, aggressive drums, the ‘raw’ delivery, but if you take this for punk, you haven’t listened to punk, period. Would it hurt to loosen up a bit, find a more interesting and personal guitar tone and put at least an ounce of fun in the track (or tracks for that matter)? And while we are at the band’s instrumental aspects, what’s up with the bass line of
Riot? Copying Joy Division, are we?
The fakeness of this album continues through the emotional part. I mean, these songs don’t delve deeper than the ‘move your body’ emotional state. You won’t reach a punk, rock or pop ‘nirvana’ through these tracks, you won’t feel bitter, sad, or anything for that matter. They are, I dunno…’rocking’, ‘upbeat’ and ’fun’. Nothing more. Whoever actually feels something while listening to this album must be checked as soon as possible.
Now that I have talked about the problems of the disc, here’s some positives for you. In the songwriting department, the melodies
are catchy, but again in a moderate way, and of course, they don’t give me any kind of emotional response. The catchiest is
Living In America and the rest revolve around its structure. The synthesizers are also too overused (great,
more problems!) and generic to give any kind of identity to the band. Nah, too fake, too slick, too calculated to truly stand out. In any way, the catchiness of the hooks is the best thing you’ll get out of this album, mind you.
The highlights of this album include the title track,
Hope Your Happy Now with its (finally) great groove and interplay and catchy hook,
Rock’n’Roll,
Talking Lady and…I guess that differs from person to person, since the tracks don’t differ that much neither in quality nor styles. This what gives the album a fairly positive rating in the end; the tracks are so uniform, monotonous and ‘just good’ that it’s difficult to choose, indeed. So choose your favorites and stick to them.
In conclusion, this is a fine, inoffensive, cohesive album. Don’t expect thrills, chills, inspiration or anything like that. Just your average rhythm section, guitar and voice. If you want new wave, post punk and similar genres, look back. This record here is just a minor, trivial release.
