(FTW) We Are Serenades (formerly Serenades), are set to release their debut album, Criminal Heaven, on Cherrytree Records/Interscope on April 17th. We Are Serenades are the musical pairing of Adam Olenius (Shout Out Louds) and Markus Krunegard (Laakso).
The story of We Are Serenades reads a bit like a love affair. A chance meeting between two leaders of two traveling packs of musicians, stealing glances on the sly at a truck stop somewhere along the Autobahn.
A short and shy conversation, cramped by mutual admiration, and the first ice was broken. Back home in Stockholm, frequent run-in's, in clubs and in bars, caused the duo to finally become friends, eventually deciding to play music together.
Songwriting happened within a pre-agreed-upon structure. "We set something like a dogma to follow," is how the band explains it. "We focused on repetitiveness, both of us singing at the same time, a bombastic, walkable beat." Songs grew from there, all constructed according to the gospel of Markus and Adam. The resulting album is one of the damn finest collections of sweet pop exuberance you'll hear in 2012.
