By John Everhart
Published: March 1st, 2006 | 12:00am

“Things they aren’t going that well,” Josephine Olausson brazenly observes during the rave-up “Used Goods,” a highlight of the uniformly excellent Nine Times That Same Song. Just as a choppy synth line metamorphoses into a swirl of white noise, like ’90s Britpop recorded through a vacuum cleaner, she shouts vigorously, “I don’t mind used goods,” and establishes the record’s enduring motif: embracing the cyclical peaks and nadirs attendant in any volatile relationship worth sustaining.

On the stirring, Bjork-like “Busy Doing Nothing,” Olausson ponders creative ways to waste time during a lull, building to the exuberant chant, “Five movie marathons, nine time that same song!” Thankfully there are slow-burners here, pristine moments of crystallized solitude, most notably the lovely “Turn The Radio Off, ” a xylophone guided ballad that finds Olausson fantasizing of detaching completely (“I pull the covers down / I’ll leave the sunshine out”). Penultimate track “Turn The TV Off” is a gorgeous jangle-pop number cut from the mold of the Go Betweens on which she plaintively admits, “I’ve got to get myself together / There has to be something that’s better.”

Fortunately, closer “Trying Too Hard” flat-out obliterates any notion of a pity party, with the band whipping things into a frothy fervor with jagged, shrill chords á la Orange Juice, culminating with Olausson’s giddy confession, “I was trying way too hard.” Well, obviously, but it’s precisely this crashing level of ambition that gives Nine Times its soul and fire.