A little while ago, a gal I know with a penchant for all things European called me up and told me to go check out this band called The Shout Out Louds. My natural response was “Well, what do they sound like?” She hesitated for a moment and than said “The Swedish Strokes.”

Now those two words on their own (Sweden and the Strokes) are not enough to light my proverbial fire but I was none the less intrigued. After listening to the first song off their self titled debut LP, the similarities set in. At a cursory glance, “The Comeback” does sound a bit like “12:51”, the same little Atari keyboard line that would right at home on a Cars single, the fuzz guitars and bass and lead singer Adam Olenius' wry and cracked voice that bears an all too close resemblance to Julian Casablancas. Now conventional wisdom tells me to disregard this band for now but something in that song called to me. I listened to it again. And again. And again. Than it hit me.

SOL comes on like many of the new crop of bands who freely pillage the pop of the mid sixties and early eighties but they do it with out the slightest hint of irony or wry detachment. Rather, they approach these older influences with a sense of wide eyed enthusiasm. Songs like “A Track And A Train” and “Seagull” are dead on tributes to The Cure circa 1985 but other songs like “100*” and “Shut Your Eyes” are genuinely enthusiastic rave ups with Olenius pinning for the simplicity of youth.

Maybe what I really love about this band is that although I’m sure they’ll be embraced by scensters from Boston to Budapest, they don’t really care. They look at music in the same way that they see love. As a source of constant fascination and despite what Olenius says in “The Comeback”, a reason to get out of bed.