Live Review | The Soundtrack of Our Lives at 9:30, Washington, D.C. March 21, 2005

“Johnny Thunders!”
“Well. Yes. He is buried in Sweden. Yes… too much baseball for him.”

Sweden’s The Soundtrack of Our Lives have become a perfected rock n’ roll animal over the last eight years, transfixed by the thumping sound of the Who and Pink Floyd’s psychadelia. They all five leap on stage in the darkness and take directly to “Believe I’ve Found”, the leading track on their new album Origin Volume I. The bouncy melody propels inflammatory words across a three-quarters filled room swaying to the bass rhythm of Kalle Jerneholm and the strums of Mattias Barjed. During this time, singer Ebbot Lundberg cast a weary eye over nearly every face, as he keeps time with a tambourine held gently beside his right ear. It seems a scrutinizing kick off (more on the performer’s side, than the audience’s), but the power of the message and the bands ability to convey don’t stop at music.

As the opener fades, Lundberg begins to stomp as Barjed and second guitarist Ian Person scratch into the bass drumming of Fredrik Sandsten. “Infra Riot” opened 2002’s Behind the Music and it symbolizes vigorous pace the show will maintain. Barjed and Person perform like a matched pair of Townshend and Richards clones. The wild and flailing Barjed does windmills and jumping splits whenever the music permits him, as Person is the moody antithesis. He’s no less enjoying the moment, but his antics are calm and cool strumming his low-slung guitar, his notes highlighting the quiet opening to “Transcendental Suicide”.

The hushed psych moments are washed out when the low end rattles its way in. Lundberg dances about the stage like a circus bear on a ball, shifting his ample belly to the melody. Between songs Lundberg discusses the inspiration of Washington, D.C. on the music they make. Almost ashamedly, he looks across the faces and says something along the lines of “some don’t understand the impact this city has everywhere else” as the band builds into “Broken Imaginary Time”. If purposeful, it could be a statement unmatched by anything said or done all night (with the exception of excluding the setlist-printed closer “21st Century Rip-Off” from the live set). The inevitable performance of single “Big Time” comes late and is a raging assessment of the band’s deep political convictions with music as furious as the confrontational lyrics built upon it. The smell of sweat leather and denim emanates from the stage as Person makes his second of three blazer changes.

They follow the powerful single with the marching “Mother One Track Mind” and their best known stateside hit “Sister Surround”, one of the widest ranging rock songs written in the new decade. The band wisely maintains tempo as long as possible. By this time every face in the crowd is locked on Lundberg as he mocks the familiar and celebrated guitar poses of Barjed, yet is the first to offer praise for a brilliant solo. The cosmic Swede demands and commands attention from the crowd, even if the spotlight flashes and flickers among he and his cohorts, each stealing it away from moment to moment.

Their albums hint of a colossal power and poise that could fill the universe with big riffs and socially conscious words (and easily a three-quarter-filled nightclub on frozen Monday night). With members in the mid-40s, the group hardly seems to be working on a timetable, plying their brilliantly crafted rock on their own pace. With the Soundtrack of Our Lives human virtue and truth seems to be a priority, daring Americans to realize the truth outside their doors to the tune of perfected arena rock.