Artist: Peter Bjorn And John
Album: Living Thing
Year: 2009
Grade: 3 pretzels
Peter Bjorn And John confuse the shit out of me. I never completely understood why the entire world fell on its head when they released their whistle-powered “Young Folks” single a couple years ago. Somehow, with one song, this obscure Swedish band was catapulted into the spotlight, popping up all over the place. Then, they released a follow-up album that was limited to only 5,000 vinyl copies in the US. They’re still fairly unknown back in Sweden. And now, they’ve released an album that doesn’t have even a single bar of whistling on it. I just can’t wrap my mind around it.
I’ll be the first to admit it: I don’t know very much about this band. I’m not intimately familiar with their back catalogue. I don’t know the band members’ favorite breakfast cereals (they’re probably Swedish anyway). All I know is that this album sounds nothing like “Young Folks”. The whimsical indie love songs have been replaced with unusually minimal synth doodles. The most similar song Living Thing has to offfer is the shuddering single “Lay It Down”, which opens with the lyrics “Hey, shut the fuck up, boy, you’re starting to piss me off.” The song is certainly playful, but it’s not particularly gentle.
The rhythm on this album tends to get a bit wild. “Nothing To Worry About” is driven forward with a slamming, almost hip-hop beat. Add in three Swedish songwriters and somehow, the whole thing ends up sounding more like Beck than anything else. Above all, Living Thing seems dominated by space. The band seems to approach music from a definite less-is-more mentality and the songs rarely have more than the bare minimum of instrumentation to hold them together. Album opener “The Feeling” needs nothing more than a sharp drumbeat, a few handclaps and a stop-start bassline to keep things moving. While this certainly creates some stark musical moments, it also makes the songs feel unformed. Many of the songs continue to sound like demos to me, waiting to be fully fleshed out.
The highest point of the album comes with the last four songs, all of which are fairly gorgeous ballads. “Stay This Way” is one of the only songs that really benefits from the lack of instrumentation, letting the tender vocal line carry the whole weight of the song. “Blue Period Picasso” channels the Magnetic Fields to wonderful effect, while featuring a lovely, echoing synth riff. Finally, the closing song, “Last Night”, sounds like the best after-hours synth anthem since Depeche Mode. The back end of the album shows where Peter Bjorn And John’s true strengths lie. “Young Folks” proved that they can write popular, off-the-wall love songs. With Living Thing, they prove that they’re strongest when they stick to just that.
I’ll be the first to admit it: I don’t know very much about this band. I’m not intimately familiar with their back catalogue. I don’t know the band members’ favorite breakfast cereals (they’re probably Swedish anyway). All I know is that this album sounds nothing like “Young Folks”. The whimsical indie love songs have been replaced with unusually minimal synth doodles. The most similar song Living Thing has to offfer is the shuddering single “Lay It Down”, which opens with the lyrics “Hey, shut the fuck up, boy, you’re starting to piss me off.” The song is certainly playful, but it’s not particularly gentle.
The rhythm on this album tends to get a bit wild. “Nothing To Worry About” is driven forward with a slamming, almost hip-hop beat. Add in three Swedish songwriters and somehow, the whole thing ends up sounding more like Beck than anything else. Above all, Living Thing seems dominated by space. The band seems to approach music from a definite less-is-more mentality and the songs rarely have more than the bare minimum of instrumentation to hold them together. Album opener “The Feeling” needs nothing more than a sharp drumbeat, a few handclaps and a stop-start bassline to keep things moving. While this certainly creates some stark musical moments, it also makes the songs feel unformed. Many of the songs continue to sound like demos to me, waiting to be fully fleshed out.
The highest point of the album comes with the last four songs, all of which are fairly gorgeous ballads. “Stay This Way” is one of the only songs that really benefits from the lack of instrumentation, letting the tender vocal line carry the whole weight of the song. “Blue Period Picasso” channels the Magnetic Fields to wonderful effect, while featuring a lovely, echoing synth riff. Finally, the closing song, “Last Night”, sounds like the best after-hours synth anthem since Depeche Mode. The back end of the album shows where Peter Bjorn And John’s true strengths lie. “Young Folks” proved that they can write popular, off-the-wall love songs. With Living Thing, they prove that they’re strongest when they stick to just that.
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