Shout Out Louds
Bush Hall, London
10 April 2008

If Bush Hall wasn’t filled to capacity with Swedish hipsters and British in-the-knows, you could easily mistake the century-old venue for an art museum—the walls and ceilings decorated with elegant plasterwork and golden chandeliers hanging overhead. Instead of Picasso or Rembrandt, inside the frames that line the narrow hall are black-and-white photographs of musicians, and on the stage this evening is Stockholm’s best-kept indie-rock secret, the Shout Out Louds.

The house music grows to a roar as the band take the stage, launching into The Comeback, the first track off their debut album. Although they’ve only been together since 2001, the performance showed the confidence and cohesion of a much more experienced group. Later in the set, they proudly announce that it’s their first sold-out performance in London, but they make you feel like you’re the only one in the room. Frontman Adam Olenius sings with the tranquillity of Robert Smith and calmly spins his microphone between lines. In the background, multi-instrumentalist Bebban Stenborg shyly squeezes her accordion and thumps the glockenspiel, batting her eyelashes at unfamiliar faces in the crowd.

She emerges to the front mid-set to sing the ballad Blue Headlights, but her whispery voice is muffled by the hum of the crowd and troubles with the sound system. The band gracefully recovers, batting out upbeat soon-to-be favourites Impossible, South Africa and Normandie. The highlight of the show comes when Olenius exchanges his guitar for a drumstick and a bell to play the new song Tonight I Have to Leave It. It begins with a thunder of drums, rolling into simple acoustic guitar chords and a string melody that would make you want to clap your hands if you could move them away from your sides.

The band plays with consistent energy throughout the night, and although some might go to live performances hoping for something different than the recording, with the Shout Out Louds, a CD-like performance is rather incredible. They achieve this, reproducing every odd instrumental sound from their debut album, Howl Howl Gaff Gaff and their upcoming record, Our Ill Wills. The show ends rather abruptly, and although everyone in Bush Hall is screaming for more Shout Out Louds, inside they are quietly satisfied.

Patrick Hoy