The Sounds – Crossing The Rubicon

One of the hallmarks of The Sounds' style is bringing angry punk elements into their unique mix of indie, electro, synth pop and lord knows what else. On their latest offering "Crossing The Rubicon", and with the exception of "4 Songs & A Fight", they all but drop this influence and created an unashamedly epic album packed with their most melodic and original work to date. In my opinion, they also created their best album to date.

It's worth noting that the album already has its detractors and it's unsurprising as a fair few songs creep into sentimental territory with wistful regressions to childhood, but in my opinion they handled it very well and it only starts to drag on the album ender "Home Is Where Your Heart Is" . It's not a bad song but its upbeat sound may become too sugary for some tastes.

That's about all the negativity I can bring myself to tack onto this album because I absolutely love listening to it. "No One Sleeps When I'm Awake" and "Dorchester Hotel" were the first songs I heard from the album; the former was sold as an mp3 on download portals and the band made the latter available for free on Last.Fm. Both perfectly showcase the direction of this album by bringing more melodic chrouses into their regular guitar orientated sound. My personal favourites "Midnight Sun" and "Lost in Love" continue that mix even further and instantly stood out the first time I listened through - "Midnight Sun" is beautiful love song that stays above ballad territory and "Lost in Love" is a forceful synth-heavy cut with a stand-out performance from vocalist Maja Ivarsson and keyboardist Jesper Anderberg, whose instrumental break at the 3 minute mark is probably my favourite part of the whole album.

They also produced another bouncing dance track in the vein of "Mine For Life" and "Hurt You" on "Beatbox", which fuses electro beats and almost celtic synths into one hell of a party tune. Great fun. The title track and "Goodnight Freddy" show the band experimenting further with their sound. "Crossing The Rubicon" is an almost vampirish track with a dark piano-lead intro that moves into shoegaze territory with its slow pace, distant vocals and swirling guitar. "Goodnight Freddy" is the complete opposite and ends the album on a very sweet note with 4 minutes of quiet, gentle synths.

With this album The Sounds retained enough of their trademarks to satisfy fans of the previous 2 albums while appealing further to anyone with an ear for melody. In my case, it appeals strongly to both factors and I consider it the highlight of 2009 so far.