Gothenburg quartet Laugh Track—vocalist Ulf Stöckel, guitarist Johan G Winther, bassist Nicklas Olsson and drummer Mattias Rasmusson—formed in 2023 when Winther, recovering from emergency surgery, “ended up writing about 12 songs in two days.”
He wanted “a no-nonsense, 1-2-3-4-Go-type project inspired by both 80s hardcore-punk and the contemporary hardcore scene here in Sweden,” and immediately called Rasmusson, Olsson and Stöckel. After Stöckel’s year-long throat problem was resolved, the band recorded the nine-track Hope Less live in their rehearsal space over two evenings. “It couldn’t have turned out any better,” Winther says.
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Collectively the members have logged time in Anchor, Blessings, Obstruktion, Defekt, Comatose, Industrial Puke, We Live In Trenches, We Dream Alone, Disavow, Scraps of Tape, Barrens and Modern Guilt. That lineage feeds a record whose lyrics keep one eye on global politics and the other on everyday survival.
Together the tracks paint a portrait of working-class fatigue, creeping fascism and the search for agency when “no future” feels literal. For Stöckel’s full song-by-song commentary, Hope Less ships with the complete lyric notes.
Laugh Track return to the rehearsal room this autumn to record a follow-up.
Track by track commentary, by Ulf:
Laugh Track – Hope Less
The lyrics emerge from trying to figure out what phrasing fits the different parts of the song. You want it to sound meaningful, and then build some kind of narrative from the words that come up.
Low Life
Here, I needed an opening phrase with multiple syllables to create a jagged edge. “Obliteration, you call it self-defense” was the first phrase that popped into my head. I had just read about Dr. Gregory H. Stanton’s Ten Stages of Genocide and the organization Genocide Watch. I imagined, in simplified terms, that the ten stages are like a bingo card used to examine the atrocities happening in certain countries. Then I added a bit of punk rhetoric on top.
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Proletarian Anger
Here I curse myself for having become a comfortable middle-class adult instead of my young, angry working-class self. More and more countries are moving toward autocracy or diminished democracy. In Sweden, the conservative parties have joined forces with a far-right party, which is problematic in many ways. A bit of amateur analysis: the neoliberal project seems to harbor some idea of white supremacy, which makes it easy for them to align with fascism. So bring out that proletarian anger and use it where it fits best—not hand in hand with an ideology that wants to undermine you, but in the face of the fascists.
In the Grind
More working-class romanticism. Growing up in a mining town north of the Arctic Circle left its mark on me and my friends. Our future prospects were pretty bleak given the limited opportunities we had. It’s possible to climb the social ladder and escape the misery, but not everyone had that chance. That’s the reality in many parts of the world—and probably much worse than my own. Many from the working class and the underclass would nod in agreement that there’s no future when you’re knee-deep in crap.
Identity Crisis
The line “Identity is fantasy” landed in my mouth as I tried, in my broken English, to find something to sing as the opening of this song. Identity is a chimera in our capitalist system, where we are all commodities. Slavoj Žižek explored this by combining Lacan’s idea of the mirror stage with Marx’s notion that the solid melts into air and the sacred becomes profane.
With My Bloody Valentine in my headphones, I stole the line—thanks to Žižek for clarifying what I’d been pondering.
Hope Less
A feeling that often arises when looking at the state of the world right now. Hopelessness is all we got.
Only One Choice
When you’re in the middle of your hopelessness, it can feel like the only thing left to do is blow yourself up and take as much of the world’s evil with you as possible.
Serpents
This is really the same theme as Proletarian Anger. One political bloc says long before the election that they won’t cooperate with the far right. But to gain power, they have totake the serpent into the boat. So they sell out to gain power—and now the serpent is around their necks too.
Back to Life
Soul II Soul, En Vogue, Venom. There you have it.
Chop Chop Chop
This raises the question of how one can choose something that oppresses and humiliates them.
Being a woman and not being a feminist is like taking a dump on your own face.
