ENDLESS SHAME UNSPOKEN WORDS ALBUM A DIFFERENT DRUM RELEASE: NOVEMBER, 2009 REVIEW: FEBRUARY 15, 2010

The Swedes in Endless Shame have developed on "Unspoken Words" what they started to create on their debut "Price of Devotion", creating an even more club friendly potion of songs this time around. In another band, Autodafeh, the two Endless Shame members Mika Rossi and Anders Olsson, go for pure electronic body music. Moving from KTown Records to American A Different Drum has also made Endless Shame slightly more electronic, it seems.

Still, the wide spread variation is ever present, resulting in heart wrenching ballads taking turns with all out club crashers and significantly more rockish tunes with bass and guitar. This is both their strength and weakness. The span may still be a little too long from extravagant rock ballad to melodic futurepop, but they build strong songs throughout. The club single "Pure" and equally catchy "Jericho" work very well, as do some other, more relaxed, compositions.

Anders has a studio engineering background from London where he has worked with productions from Madonna, Oasis, Blur, Pet Shop Boys and Robbie Williams for several years. The challenge for Endless Shame is then rather a quest for refinement than upping the overall quality, which is firmly there. Mixing synths and guitars has been done with flair before, "Unspoken Words" just does it too bluntly.

NIKLAS FORSBERG