he other night I was listening to the song "Mine for Life" off the Sounds’ Living in America when I really got to wondering: How in the hell is this album not a huge hit? The only albums I’ve heard this year that come close in terms of consistent catchiness and pure pop pleasure are Electric Version and Justified, and yet there is bafflingly little buzz, at least here in the States, surrounding the Sounds. There was a nice brief write-up about the album the Village Voice, and aside from a negative review at Pitchfork, I’ve seen next to nothing written about it anywhere, nor, to my knowledge, has it sold particularly well, which is a shock to me. I really don’t get it. Living in America is an absolute gem. Nearly every track’s flat-out fantastic; the only misstep is a song called "Rotten," featuring the cringe-worthy line, "Johnny’s not that rotten in case you have forgotten," or something stupid like that, followed by a regrettable string of ‘oi!’s (I think only Mike Skinner can still pull that off without sounding moronic). The Swedish quintet’s band name might seem a tad on the generic side–until you hear them play. Their lyrics, while sporadically clever and compulsively sing-a-long-able, are mostly beside the point (of far more importance is singer Maja Ivarsson’s vocal delivery, through which the obvious rally cry "We are the S-O-U-N-D-S” is as compelling as any lyric on the record); this is music about just how damn good music can sound.