Our Ill Wills

We Say...

Review by J. Edward Keyes

If it does not already exist, let us now initiate a genre called Cure-core, a collection of bands who nick proudly and brazenly from the catalogue of R. Smith. Let us also quickly clarify: in no way is this a bad thing. Instead of taking cues from the smeared-mascara mope of early albums like Faith and Pornography — as so many before them have done — the Shout Out Louds shoot straight for 1987's Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me. Their version of "Just Like Heaven" is called "Tonight I Have to Leave It" and it opens their second album on an impossible high. It's got the commanding stateliness of an overture, sweeping and sun-eyed and jubilant.

And haven't the Shout Out Louds earned a little joy? Their debut was released on major-label Capitol two years ago and went nowhere, crowded out by brighter lights, a starter pistol going off in a firecracker warehouse. Our Ill Wills is brisker and brighter and better, lots of looping strings and thundering rhythms colliding behind Adam Olenius's Smithian howl. The first half of the record is as close to perfect as pop music comes: Olenius sets up camp in that middle ground between sweetness and sadness and sings like he can't tell the difference between the two. "Your Parents Livingroom" fizzes slow and steady like a sparkler, piano dawdling lazily in the background; "You Are Dreaming" is the most raucous number about accidental pregnancy since "Papa Don't Preach," highwire guitars leading the way to a four-on-the-floor chorus. Ill Wills' opening rush is so sugary it's easy to forget that there's a whole album behind it.

Which, you know, is good and bad. They falter a bit as the record progresses, and a few of the moodier late-arriving numbers seem to kick the record off balance. But it hardly matters — everything that precedes them is so glimmering and winning it's hard to take too much issue.

"I lost my friends in an accident," Olenius moans at the start if "Time Left for Love." Like most of his songs, it's hard to tell if he's thrilled or dismayed. But within seconds, it doesn't matter: the guitars start twitching a little faster, the piano comes in with a crash and the whole thing is off like a runaway mine car, looping and diving and spiraling up and up. And there's Olenius in the driver's seat: lost, lonely, strange as angels, just like a dream. Just. Like. A. Dream.