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highplainsdem

(57,575 posts)
Wed Jul 30, 2025, 04:27 PM 19 hrs ago

The Soundtrack of Our Lives (TSOOL/SOOL), a classic-rock-influenced band from Sweden

Lyrics in English. Very talented band. Formed in 1995, disbanded in 2012, reunited in 2023. Rave reviews, especially for their third album, Behind The Music (2001 in Europe, 2002 in the US), which was nominated for Best Alternative Album at the 2003 Grammys.

I searched and can't find any threads about them here, sooo... A couple of Wikipedia pages: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Soundtrack_of_Our_Lives and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behind_the_Music_(album)


One song from Behind The Music below, the studio track and a live performance from last year. Then a Rockpalast concert from 2012, 1hr14m, setlist/times below.

First, one of the reviews of that album, from The Guardian:

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2002/feb/01/shopping.artsfeatures2?INTCMP=SRCH

Listening to Gothenburg's Soundtrack of Our Lives, anyone would think there wasn't much going on in modern-day Sweden. Their weird, parallel universe is frozen in time, around 1967. Their major influences are Love, the Beatles and Pink Floyd, although they may also be partial to a sly bit of Donovan. Even less encouragingly, they have been known to wear kaftans. And yet this is a marvellous album, with a pulsating, hallucinatory vibe that takes the breath away. Some songs - the plaintive In Someone Else's Mind ("It's not exactly where I want to be" ) - brim with off-kilter Syd Barratt twists. Others have grooves as insistent as anything in modern dance - intriguingly, their fans include both Oasis and the Chemical Brothers. SOOL's closest modern peers are Super Furry Animals, but even the Furries might baulk at the retro-ism of 21st Century Rip Off, which, with just detectable irony, insists that modern life is rubbish. Still, the glorious sounds here provide a convincing argument to join SOOL in their lovingly built sonic time-capsule.


Another, from the LA Times:

https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-dec-23-ca-rack23-story.html

The Soundtrack of Our Lives, “Behind the Music,” Warner Telegram/Hidden Agenda. Whatever happened to boomers’ rock ‘n’ roll? It’s alive and playing air sitar, thanks to a Swedish sextet that demonstrates classic rock is not necessarily Jurassic rock. Its third album, released earlier this year and available through the Midwestern indie distributor Parasol, brims with urgent riffs and unaffected melodies, fringed in mellotron, strings and horns. Whether reveling in a Stones groove or reeling in Beatles psychedelia, TSOOL pushes buttons, not envelopes. It’s a comforting sound, the breathing of a genre that needs no hyphens.



And Rolling Stone's comment on this track:

https://web.archive.org/web/20071001231517/http://www.rollingstone.com/artists/thesoundtrackofourlives/albums/album/99947/review/5941515/behind_the_music

Infra Riot" compresses references to Led Zeppelin, the MC5 and the Doors into an atomic soul shaker






Live in London, March 6, 2024:






Concert from.the Crossroads Festival, March 2012:




0:04 Mantra Slider
8:31 Firmanent Vacation
12:57 Grand Canaria
17:04 Galaxy Grammophone
21:01 Nevermore
25:32 Keep The Line Movin'
30:05 Bigtime
40:33 Second Life Replay
46:55 Sister Surround
52:31 The Passover
57:52 Confrontation Camp
1:03:07 What's Your Story?
1:07:22 Jehovah Sunrise

2 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
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The Soundtrack of Our Lives (TSOOL/SOOL), a classic-rock-influenced band from Sweden (Original Post) highplainsdem 19 hrs ago OP
I Can See Why You Like Them ProfessorGAC 16 hrs ago #1
There's a lot to be said for solid, straight-ahead rock. And I love discovering new music - well, music highplainsdem 14 hrs ago #2

ProfessorGAC

(73,762 posts)
1. I Can See Why You Like Them
Wed Jul 30, 2025, 06:41 PM
16 hrs ago

Solid, straight ahead rock. The live stuff (I listened to snippets of the full show) is pretty good, too.

highplainsdem

(57,575 posts)
2. There's a lot to be said for solid, straight-ahead rock. And I love discovering new music - well, music
Wed Jul 30, 2025, 08:44 PM
14 hrs ago

that's new to me.

Despite their Grammy nomination, I don't remember hearing of this band decades ago.

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