User ratings in Music are temporarily disabled. More info
  • Record Label:
  • Release Date:
Our Ill Wills Image
Metascore
72

Generally favorable reviews - based on 20 Critic Reviews What's this?

User Score
7.2

Generally favorable reviews- based on 14 Ratings

  • Summary: The Swedish band releases its second album, produced by fellow Swede Björn Yttling of Peter Bjorn and John.
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 13 out of 20
  2. Negative: 0 out of 20
  1. Say what you will about influences on sleeves, this is pop music at its best: nostalgic and angst-ridden, but ultimately life-affirming. Shout Out Louds have found a winning formula.
  2. The SOLs are skilled at crafting songs rooted in striking specificity.
  3. Our Ill Wills is an impressive, depressive album that could scare away all but their hardiest fans in one 48-minute swoop.
  4. Between them, Stenborg and Yttling ensure that Our Ill Wills doesn’t sink under the weight of Olenius’ unremitting melancholy or monochromatic tonalities.
  5. Our Ill Wills is a consistently stronger, more cohesive collection than its predecessor, and it positions Shout Out Louds as a more extroverted and more accessible contemporary to Arcade Fire and another recent example of the compelling pop music coming out of Sweden.
  6. 60
    Borrowing liberally and transparently from Bright Eyes, the Cure and mid-1960s chamber pop, the band sublimates familiar expressions of indie gloom with string flourishes and twink­ling piano lines, giving Olenius both a shoulder to cry on and, in soaring songs like 'Tonight I Have to Leave It,' a source of joy.
  7. I don’t like it. I don’t hate it. And that’s the truth exactly.

See all 20 Critic Reviews

Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 2 out of 2
  2. Mixed: 0 out of 2
  3. Negative: 0 out of 2
  1. EoinG
    Oct 26, 2007
    9
    Our Ill wills opens with what will be one of the indie pop tracks of the year Tonight I have to Leave it, immediately toe tapping and Our Ill wills opens with what will be one of the indie pop tracks of the year Tonight I have to Leave it, immediately toe tapping and thoughtfully arranged as it introduces each instrument, layer on layer, each uplifting the next to a bellxylophone like percussion that only makes you smile. They move onto to more catchy tracks that trip you along joyfully. You are going to hear references to the Cure (happy version) in reviews, due to vocals and melody style but there are Beautiful South and The Smiths influences there too. No masterpiece but a really enjoyable album, a hooky happy meal ,but they hold the cheese to make it (cr)edible - sorry! Expand
  2. RodneyO
    Oct 3, 2007
    8
    "Our Ill Wills" delivers on the incredibly high standards set forth by the bands debut disc.