Nine Times That Same Song

Love Is All’s inimitable style

Love Is All is a five-member indie rock band from Gothenburg, Sweden with a gifted front woman Josephine Oluasson. After the break up of the band called Girfrendo, vocalist and guitarist Nicholaus Sparding, drummer Markus Gorsch and Josephine together with saxophonist Fredrik Eriksson and bassist Johan Lindwall formed Love Is All and their debut album Nine Times That Same Song was first released in 2005. Today we enjoy the opportunity to hear it again. The record being quite short – about half an hour – for many it can be far from enough to listen to it only once. It is a very stylish lo-fi mixture of pop, punk and rock music full of inventiveness and wonderfully refined by the saxophone. Josephine Oluasson is eager to draw your attention and does succeed in it, giving her voice full swing, practically yelling with her charming Swedish accent. The elated sound throughout the whole Nine Times That Same Song can inspire anyone and make one’s gloomy mood go away. However the most remarkable trait on the album is the slightly disturbing disharmony created by Josephine’s high tone vocals and the contrasting musicians’ playing backed up by the riotous sax. Love Is All’s debut is the thin edge of the wedge in the new inimitable style.

A variety of tracks on Nine Times That Same Song

Each out of the ten tracks on Nine Times That Same Song is different from the others arguing with the album’s title. The first words you hear – ‘one more time!’ – on the ambitious track Talk Talk Talk Talk at once absorb you into the delighted and joyful atmosphere of the album. The single Busy Doing Nothing with an unremitting beat, front singer’s splendid vocals and penetrating bursts of sax is followed by innocent lovely song Make Out Fall Out Make Up telling about the sensitive young people in love. The funny and smart track Ageing Has Never Been His Friend is one of the standouts on Nine Times The Same Song with a catchy frequently repeated chorus ‘fresh and young, fresh and young’. A pleasant thing to learn is that Love Is All does the slow songs just as well too: though Turn Off The Radio and Turn The TV Off have not too complicated melodies the instrumentation here is just amazing and harmonious. A nicely gentle song Felt Tip is likable for the good kind-hearted lyrics and the album closer Trying Too Hard For is a marvelous rock number, the bass guitar and percussion producing the most powerful combination and ending Nine Times That Same Song with a profound and loud instrumental statement.

The title Nine Times That Same Song has a deep hidden sense

A true masterpiece cannot reveal its amenities from the very first time one sees or hears it. Often the most precious is hidden under other layers and it is necessary to be patient and study the thing carefully to get a clear idea what that all is about. This is what Nine Times That Same Song is like. The lo-fi noises, echoes complex instrumentation may confuse creating sounds rather difficult to apprehend. The trick is it has been done deliberately to avoid the simplicity and result is a mere revelation – the melodies opening more distinctly with each following listening makes one wonder why they have remained unnoticed the first time and to grasp them a trained ear is likely to be not enough. Moreover, as soon as you get the melodies, the witty rhymes are going to strike with their unexpected metaphors. The topic chosen, love, is on the one hand so warn and common and on the other it remains the most unexplored phenomenon causing people to do strange things. The Love Is All’s style reflects the two plains in a genius way – plain words and melodies are interwoven with a multilayer arrangement and the illusion of disharmony in the instrumentation. The title Nine Times That Same Song has a deep hidden sense – a love song is always one and the same, the only thing you need to do is to listen carefully to catch it.