Sugar Louise

Friends In Love Places

Written by: PP on 14/04/2014 00:14:24

Well this is a nice surprise, a significant improvement in all areas from the previous album courtesy of Norway's Sugar Louise. Their debut album "Everything's Better With Sugar" was basically a simple no frills pop punk album that most of all reminded us of Ramones and their modern contemporaries like The 20Belows, Zapoteks, and those sorts of bands. While it was a fun little album, it lacked highlight tracks that'd stick to your memory for other reasons than pure humour, and instead contained mostly fairly predictable no frills pop punk material.

All of that has been fixed for "Friends In Love Places", which sees the band deviate from the no-frills pop punk sound and turn their heads towards the mid 90s punk rock scene instead. Particularly Rancid is being referenced in songs like "Eastside Crew" and "On The Radio", partially thanks to their vocalist who sounds like a younger version of Tim Armstrong, but you also have throwbacks to "Dookie"-era Green Day and other bands like them in the process. They haven't forgotten the no-frills pop punk sound entirely, though. "1994" for example is a fast, upbeat track that's extremely simple in its nature both instrumentally and lyrically: with lines like "Take me back to '94 with 'Dookie' and '...And Out Come The Wolves', they changed my life..." it's only fitting that the song references the no-frills scene of modern days sound wise, since that scene is a direct reaction to the lack of 90s style elements in the 2000s punk scene.

At the same time, the band remember to spice their songs with plenty of humorous lyricism. Previously, they were somewhat juvenile; the band realized this and elevated the quality of their humour significantly throughout the album. The key importance being here that the songs are as fun as they are catchy and upbeat. That's something Sugar Louise succeeds with throughout the album, and when you sound a little bit like classic Rancid, well, can you go wrong?

Download: Eastside Crew, 1994, On The Radio, My NYC
For the fans of: Rancid, (old) Green Day, Left Alone
Listen: Facebook

Release date 03.03.2014
Naked Hollywood Records

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