So, the title's just a pun. Peter Morén, Bjorn Yttling, and John Erikkson all wrote songs for their third album, Writer's Block, but where last year's heartbroken Falling Out drew inspiration mainly from 1960s pop, the Stockholm-based trio's latest LP finds them aspiring to new levels of sonic diversity, exploring everything from lo-fi 80s electronics and shoegaze guitars to slacker beats and icy dreamscapes. It's a lot of new ground for a band to have covered in a year's time; fortunately, PB&J (uh, yeah, we know) managed to harness their melodic expertise and cultivate their textural craftsmanship at precisely the same time. The result is their most focused and fully realized effort yet-- an album that adds an imperial hugeness to the teen noir and garage-y psychedelia of their past efforts-- and one of the better pop records we've heard this year.
Aided by Yttling's solid production (he's also worked with the Concretes and Shout Out Louds), Writer's Block's sonic textures demand attention first: odd synths, overdriven bass, dreamy harmonies, rolling drums, pink streaks of guitar noise, or a foot tapping in soft focus. But ultimately, the album is just as notable for the way it captures both the electric first moments of a deep relationship and the bleary aftermath of post-breakup malaise. The infectious, lazily whistled hook and playful bongo drums of first single "Young Folks" are immediately inviting, but the song's second layer-- the coy chemistry between Morén and ex-Concretes singer Victoria Bergsman-- adds depth, as the song's two hopeful strangers discover each other by chance: "All we care about is talking/ Talking only me and you."
As an album, Writer's Block shares these new lovers' singular focus. "Paris 2004" is a classical guitar-tinged traveler's ballad in the manner of John Cale's near-perfect "Andalucia", exchanging Cale's studied ambiguity for sentimental bedazzlement; Erikkson's "Start to Melt" flickers with amazed adoration; and Morén's "Objects of My Affection" combines the dramatic flair of an uncharacteristically upbeat Morrissey with the nasal vocals and ringing acoustic guitars of a post-Loveless "Like a Rolling Stone".
The album's narrators cast an equally attentive eye on love's jagged downside. Amid the simplistic percussion and glassy Flaming Lips chorus of "Amsterdam", Yttling mopes over his loneliness during a lover's vacation, before Erikkson's starry-eyed "Up Against the Wall" pictures a relationship at the precipice. "It's almost that I wish we hadn't met at all," sings Erikkson against a crystalline rhythm that could pack a John Hughes prom.
Written by the full trio, "The Chills" pays quiet homage to the New Zealand indie group of the same name, and steeps its bitterness in caustic one-liners ("Your tongue is sharp/ But I miss the taste of it"). And at last, Yttling's big-screen "Roll the Credits" pictures an escape, but as usual on Writer's Block, the romance fills the frame: "It's between me and her now/ Can't separate at all/ Let's put the cards back in the sleeve." Only droning closer "Poor Cow" kills the mood, like the George Harrison sitar song contrarians might revisit when the rest of the album grows overly familiar.
For Peter Bjorn & John-- as with their Pitchfork-approved compatriots-- love is all. As such, a certain amount of actual writer's block should have been expected; after all, what Writer's Block seeks to portray is, in the end, ineffable. "And the question is: Was I more alive then than I am now?" Morén wonders on "Objects of My Affection", rejoindering, "I happily have to disagree/ I laugh more often now/ I cry more often now/ I am more me." If lyric poetry is, as Czech novelist Milan Kundera recently wrote, "the most exemplary incarnation of man dazzled by his own soul and the desire to make it heard," surely the pop song is the highest incarnation of all-consuming love and its fundamental need to be shared. Writer's Block, indeed.
Marc Hogan
MANCHESTER EVENING NEWS (4 out of 5)
To paraphrase, ‘Who are these crazy Scandinavians?’ was simple Radio 1 DJ and chart show host Scott Mills’ instinctive response to Swedish trio Peter, Bjorn and John crashing his countdown with their debut UK release Young Folks. Maybe someone should have given him a nudge and pointed out that its delicate female vocal was provided by none other than Victoria Bergsman, she of The Concretes ‘fame’, although that may well have been as pointless as reporting a theft at your local nick.
And, besides, others have been quicker to catch on. Writer’s Block, PB&J’s third album and their first to traverse the North Sea, has been the recipient of unanimous praise the like of which has not been seen since Arcade Fire stormed these shores with Funeral.
Hype breeds suspicion, but fans of Young Folks (whistled refrain and all) need not worry. It’s not a one-off; its parent album does offer moments of equal (and, indeed, superior) beauty.
The history of PB&J is long and needs potting. Peter (Morén) and Björn (Yttling) jammed together for the best part of eight years. Björn earned a crust as a producer and John (Eriksson) entered the scene. Seven years and two non-exported albums later, they released YF and W’s B to rave reviews.
Their set-up is of the Teenage Fanclub three-for-the-price-of one variety: individual songwriters (a trio, thereof) bring their own material to the studio; the others muck in; and the lucky listener is treated only to the very finest products.
One such is Paris 2004, a song so perfect that Morén may spend the remainder of his life failing to create its equal.
Recalling, over exquisite, lilting Spanish guitar, a sojourn in the French capital, he evocatively describes a state of romantic obsession so comprehensive that the boundaries of ‘self’ are erased and eating breakfast dismissed as a criminal waste of precious shared attention.
Continuing the theme, Young Folks (for anyone who hasn’t heard it, an understated duet featuring softly-softly jabbing from coy couple Morén and Bergsman), neatly conveys the total absorption of a newly-united pair at the exclusion of everyone who is not them.
YF is a rare collaboration between Yttling and Morén, The Chills a still scarcer three-way endeavour, its verses all snappy drumming, its gentle, harmonic chorus almost choral.
Elsewhere, Eriksson (the pounding I Start to Melt) and Yttling (Amsterdam, timeless guitar-pop) each defines his own credible songwriting credentials, the latter further highlighting the value endowed by one of your number being a professional producer.
Stephen Gilliver
MTV2 RECOMMENDS
Judging by the name alone you'd be forgiven for thinking that Peter, Bjorn and John were either bearded, acoustic guitar strumming Scandavians, or at least not very imaginative Scandanavians. Although they do hail from various parts of Sweden, this record is neither folk nor un-imaginative. Its summery indie-pop if the highest order with whistling and harmonies and danceable basslines. Its a record that manages to sound both old and new at the same time; a brand new record that sounds like it has stood the test of time. Post-post-post-post-post-punk hit by the sun and reflected through a shimmering wall of sound. Oh and one of them does have a beard.
Dan S
GOD IS IN THE TV (4 out of 5)
Sweden's comma-phobic Peter Bjorn And John will probably be familiar to you as the makers of 'Young Folks', which will no doubt have soundtracked your summer in some way. You may even have a 'Young Folks moment', when this fantastic song first entered your world (mine is hearing it blasting out of a car as I stumbled into the Dour Festival). Recently awarded five gleaming stars on this site thanks to its obscene levels of cool and catchiness, like many massive debut hits it renders the album automatically disappointing. But even if nothing can hit that track's whistle-assited levels of joy, 'Writer's Block' can certainly not be accused of flogging its winning formula. It is, thankfully, an eclectic showcase of their pop knack in a number of guises rather than ten more songs to flesh out their signature track.
Their first album for new label Wichita, there are more than enough finely-crafted gems to keep Peter Bjorn And John on the radar for a while yet. They are already masters of indie-pop, adding shoegazy walls of noise to 'Objects Of My Affection' and writing lovelorn beauties like 'Paris 2004' ("I'm all about you/You're all about me/We're all about each other"), the kind of song so sweet and laid-back it's almost depressing to listen to at any time other than Summer. The balance is almost perfect in places, like 'Start To Melt''s girl-group lyrics and Spector-esque wall of sound, or 'Up Against The Wall''s gentle but emotive build-up into epic status. They've also developed a couple of trademarks, with a number of tracks featuring whistling tucked away amongst the noise (rather than centre stage), and Peter's achingly cool vocals, complete with elongated vowels, are pleasingly distinctive.
You've got to commend them for their craftmanship: this album is tailor-made to be instantly likeable (of course, anyone who buys it will have instantly been enchanted by 'Young Folks') but also, thanks to some surprisngly excellent lyrics and eclectic charm, ensure it'll sneak under your skin once you're past the stage of appreciating its overhwelming niceness. Where the similarly sunny Magic Numbers' lack of depth meant we all got bored of them after a couple of months, 'Writer's Block' will continue to surprise, ensuring it a place on a fair amount of Best Of 2006 lists. And when you finally manage get the unbearable catchiness of 'Young Folks' out of your head, you can enjoy a whole new set of tunes to fall in love with.
Mike Mantin
STYLUS MAGAZINE
While we wait for the lexicon to catch up to the reality, we can at least suggest that the ‘independent’ of indie pop doesn’t just mean ‘produced on an independent label’ anymore, though that’s often still the case. It’s come, for convenience’s sake, to mean transcending looks, as mastered by the likes of Beyoncé and Fall Out Boy, and actually having depth, sophistication, and a modicum of genius. To catch a look, watch a music video, listen to a 30-second iTunes store clip, or listen to an album once. Ironically, if those looks hold your gaze for more than a day, it’s not just pop. It’s excellent music.
The pop/rock line is blurring, perhaps because the term ‘pop’ is insulting. Often now, into to the popscape seeps the gnarly elegance usually left to indie rock. This dirty, tarnished “look” manifests itself on the first track of Writer’s Block, “Objects of My Affection,” which plunges into a flirtation with the clutter and slop neatly orchestrated by self-producing outfits like the Arcade Fire and a dozen others. But Peter Morén’s vocals command like a two-part Beatles harmony circa A Hard Day’s Night, and we’ll be hearing more of that cleaner genre as the album progresses. But really, the Beatles reference (upon reference) is the only reason this album should be classified under pop.
Other “pop” bands have succeeded in disguising typical pop elements with producer absenteeism, underfed mixing, and first takes, but Writer’s Block, produced by the band’s own Bjorn Yttling, goes the route of a cool, minty-fresh sound that only twice clambers on stage for a moment of grit (the second time is “Start to Melt”). Otherwise the sound is crisp and harnessed.
The subject of the album is—cringe—lovemaking (the innocent 19th century definition). It’s an ode to friendship, hardship, courtship, and bedship. But, rather incriminatingly, love is a pop phenomenon. All the “young folks,” “old folks,” and “wrong folks” ignored by the enamored couple-to-be in “Young Folks” have been victims of it, or will be. Love is love; it possesses the same characteristics and it suffers by the same clichés across continents and history. So PB&J aptly fixate on the delicacies of this human preoccupation, magnifying them, picking them apart, and reworking them.
“Paris 2004” zooms in on love’s familiar day-to-day: lovers as they wake up together, obsessively dine out together, and frequently go late to work…together. The song is founded upon one of the cheeriest acoustic guitar refrains in recent years, and instantly it’s an addictive theme song for spanking-new love. The sound is balls-out sentimentality. There’s no diffidence in sight. The chorus, “I’m all about you / You’re all about me / We’re all about each other,” nearly makes you sick to your stomach, but when you find yourself returning to the track, you’ll realize that it’s giddiness you’re feeling. You get this track’s point. And if you don’t, you probably want to.
Another chapter: we all know what exhaustive courtship feels like, the boredom that’s inspired by playing the field, the drunken disillusionment that can ensue from playing the field, and how love makes its surprise attacks. “Young Folks,” the album’s first single, is yet another shining translation of a tired romantic scenario. The subject of the song is the hook-up, the antecedent to the happiness the couple will enjoy in Paris in 2004. And importantly, it’s a duet. With an echoing ’60s backdrop of shakers and pounding bass, the dialogue proceeds. Boy (Morén) asks girl (to paraphrase), “Would you still like me if you knew what I was really like?” Girl (Victoria Bergsman) responds it doesn’t matter what he’s done, and encourages him, “We can stick around and see this night through.”
The song progresses; the night progresses. Then comes Bergsman’s smoky, sexy, languid delivery of the line, “No one will surprise me unless you do,” oozing the quiet impatience of love’s willing victims. We imagine her voice to be reverbed into the dark shadows of a party’s thinning crowd. She subtly coaxes us into abolishing love’s bullshit fine print, instead reaching for the messages writ large and turning them into sultry whispers.
The only time the muse is shelved (“Poor Cow”) is the only time the album drags, which is a point against rock and its penchant for inanimate cynicism, shrugs, and dejection, and another point for pop, which, let’s face it, is predominantly smiling—whether coyly, cloyingly, or undetectably.
“Objects” is, emotively speaking, the strongest track, with percussive force and the superior position of being Chapter One in the story. Here Morén is readying to ditch solitude, perhaps without even knowing it. “I laugh more often now / I cry more often now / I am more me,” he proclaims with just a quick glance at the past. The song is a foreshadowing triumphal march that spills hope and energy into each of the tracks that follows it. Even the languorous and verseless “Roll the Credits” careens for six and a half minutes without annoying the ear. Its scintillating Walkmen-like guitars slide between two or three notes, and the lyrics tap into another familiar sentiment, this time a bit of a denouement: “It’s just me and her now.” The melody is repeated calmly, confidently, and slowly until the point is hammered home, then referred back to. The album is a meta, and each song, a segment of dialogue.
We can’t call this rock because it’s downright friendly. The songs’ body language is suggestive of that rare person who is simply and unequivocally nice. And we all know what nice rock sounds like. But true pop doesn’t ever do this—not only betraying a passion most of us are too embarrassed to show as pop, but beckoning us to explore and even exploit it. Writer’s Block has announced the renaissance of both pop music and love. The memorable compositions connote love’s predictability and worship it all down the winding path, from object to subject, and from ideal to actuality.
Liz Colville
THE TIMES
Arguably, it takes a Swede (or in this case, three of them) to combine 1980s synth pop, Motown and noisy guitar rock to tasteful effect. But PB & J’s international debut bristles with excitement too. From the shaker-sprinkled perk pop, complete with whistling, of the single Young Folks to Up Against the Wall, which picks up where New Order’s Temptation left off, these are thrillingly romantic songs, designed to be sung — and swung — along to.
Sophie Harris
THISISFAKEDIY.CO.UK
Pop law dictates in every boyband you must have a favourite member. End of. And yes, while Swedish three piece Peter, Bjorn and John (does what it says on the tin folks) aren't your usual matching outfit and hypo dance routine types there's certainly oodles of pop tucked in their melodious ware.
So, with pop law in mind we draw your attention to drummer John Eriksson. Certainly the best member - what with his a bit dancey, a bit jazz laid back drum work- he proves the distinguishing mark in the trio's light harmonious bumbles.
And it's not just that whistling surprise 'Young Folks' that's standing out here either. Yes, the fragility lent by rent-a-Swede ex-Concretes lady Victoria Bergsman does make for a super cute affair, but the deadpan bob of 'Amsterdam' works just as well with floaty backing vocals only occasionally popping in to brighten things up.
Sounding a bit like an optimistic Morrissey – yes we know it's hard to imagine – in parts on 'Objects of My Affection' and a folk robot at others on 'Start To Melt' and 'The Chills', the trio's pounding then skitting about creates the cold of the latter's title with oodles of character.
While we could suggest stalking the drummer it's probably best to go and buy the album. You'll be getting a treat.
Siân Rowe
THE GUARDIAN
Young Folks, the summer single from this Swedish trio, was so good it raised a question: could their first UK album possibly match up to the expectations it raised?
Yes, actually. If it's not a resounding yes, that's only because Peter, Bjorn and John don't really do resounding; they do wistful and melancholic, and - at their most effusive - maybe a little yearning.
But beneath the apparently Identikit indiepop moping lurks a wry lyrical sense, rather more mature and insightful than most of their indie peers can manage: "And the question is: was I more alive then than I am now?" they sing on Objects of My Affection, "I happily have to disagree/ I laugh more often now, I cry more often now, I am more me." A delight, from start to finish.
Michael Hann
TOTALLY DUBLIN (4 out of 5)
The past few years has seen Canada dominate the hearts and shelves of music fans everywhere; but spearheading the latest Scando faction in the War of Indie-pendence is a triumvirate of pals from Northern Sweden. Ladies and gents, meet the comma-shunning trinity of Peter Bjorn and John. Though Writer's Block is their third album in seven years of existence (following 2001's eponymous debut and 2004's Falling Out), their success has thus far been low-key and confined mostly to their home country and the bedrooms of clued-in musos. Taking an austere approach to songwriting, which is done largely independently (The Chills is the sole collaborative effort here), Writer's Block is a caboodle of woozy, lo-fi indiepop. It encloses elements of folk, Britpop and experimental alt-rock that, when brought together, create a charming fluency that's hard to dislike. There's a magnetism within the Spector-esque/Mercury Rev-lite alliance of Start To Melt or the faded 60s-Kinks-glamour of Let's Call It Off; the strident bassline of Up Against The Wall is recollective of The Cure at their nihilistic finest, while Objects of My Affection's jangly acoustics evokes shades of The Housemartins. Their finest hour by a country mile, however, is the adorable Young Folks; a track with the deftest beat, the catchiest whistling and the most effortlessly off-kilter melody of the summer - and that's before the gravelly fragility of The Concretes' Victoria Bergsman makes an appearance. The smorgasbord of influences on display here is unabashedly peddled - Elvis Costello, The Beatles, even contemporaries such as Spoon, Dungen and The Concretes; yet Peter Bjorn and John's songwriting and musicianship embodies a chemistry that sets them apart from protagonists past and present. Writer's Block is an easygoing album with lyrical depth, varied instrumentation and total, undeniable charm; if this is what Peter Bjorn and John deem an impediment, the proliferation is surely worth salivating over.
Laureen Murphy
COKEMACHINEGLOW.COM (Rating 85%)
Stupidity is infectious. Knowledge is paralysing. Vulnerability is key. Writer’s Block is awkwardly open, unfettered by the intellectual manacles of “exposition” or “concept.” It is what it is: a raw nerve firing off in the midst of the smoke-and-mirrors production aesthetic and grand ambition that have ruined much of this year’s song craft. Sure, the band has beefed up their sound since last year’s Falling Out, tripping teasingly over invisible precipices into caverns of open canvas -- but the song, ultimately, remains the same. Expect the same calamitous poignancy that ran roots through the group’s previous work, except projected into higher definition.
Peter Bjorn and John emerge here as a singular artistic entity, rather than the sum total of their influences. The tipping point is surely Victoria Bergsman’s alluring ennui on summer jam “Young Folks,” as the album assimilates, rather than openly apes (see the cover of the Concrete’s seminal “Teen Love” on Falling Out) their rudimentary geographic influences. The song, a potent combination of stalwart grooves and instrumental eccentricity is, like the best pop songs, startlingly simple, endlessly interesting, its nonchalant whistles and smooth synths conjuring up images of spaced-out tranquillity that is amusingly quashed by footsteps, bongos, and hiss snares that lie beneath its thin ice -- the perfect encapsulation of that most juvenile form of deceit.
Here, after all, are some of this year’s most assured and gripping pop moments, brought out by the homogeneous nature of the songs and the rhythmic and tonal contradictions playing out the drama set down in the lyrics. The steady thuds, overdriven bass vibratos, and crippling notes ground “Amsterdam” in pure tones of melancholy, and the aptly titled “Start to Melt” does just that, its decaying guitar feedback and gutter-drone organ buzzing out as the song undresses itself. Better still is “Let’s Call It Off,” which rides the kind of syncopated Strokesian drum effrontery that spells out “punk blast,” but instead of tinny guitars and choppy bass, the track is lavished with a strung-out guitar line, the bright chords and straight notes bent out of shape, shadows leaping over the pristine potential of what-could-be, leaving dying, dilapidated embers of a love parochial. It’s odd, but it works, as does the unadulterated blood rush of “Objects of my Affection,” which refuses to lay into silly pretences of intellect.
Despite its more fractured stylistic elements -- shoegaze smashing headlong into folk pop -- Writer’s Block emerges as one of the most complete and satisfying records of this year. As put down in Moren’s much quoted lyric, “I laugh more often now / I cry more often now / I am more me,” Peter Bjorn and John realise the importance of sensitivity as well as intensity, hitching a balance between the two across the album -- never too sensitive to belie the confident, careless strut that envelopes these songs, never too intense to bluster and obfuscate the crushing nuances that permeate their weighty core. It’s a winning symbiosis on a record that is nothing but a joy to listen to.
Alan Baban
HECKLERSPRAY
The Swedish don't have the best reputation on these shores at the moment, thanks to one of them deciding to take two knackered strikers, a 20-foot asparagus and a toddler to the World Cup instead of any actual players. However, if there's any justice in the world, Writer's Block by Peter Bjorn And John will help us all fall in love with Sweden all over again.
And that's because Writer's Block by Peter Bjorn And John is a dizzying mixture of quirky low-fi grooves, classic songwriting and infectious whistling. The result is that Writer's Block by Peter Bjorn And John is one of the most dazzling albums you'll hear all summer.
Aside from Sven Goran Eriksson - and that pikey 50p cola drink they sell by the tills in Ikea - a lot of Swedish exports are pretty ace. And, after hearing Writer's Block, Peter Bjorn And John are going right to the top of our list. Writer's Block is Peter Bjorn And John's third album, and the one that looks set to propel them overground. By now you'll be deliriously familiar with the single Young Folks - a song that proves whistling, bongos and a 1960's go-go rhythm can combine to make a heartfelt love song. Much of that has to do with the guest vocal duties from Victoria Bergsman from The Concretes - who still has a voice that you want to curl up and sleep inside - but Young Folks is just one highlight of many on Writer's Block.
For the entirety of Writer's Block, Peter Bjorn And John manage to create an incredible feeling of intimacy and closeness that lets the album sit together a whole, which is even more exceptional when you realise that it's a mixture of three writers' songs. A great deal of this is down to the production of Writer's Block - most songs contain a gently thrumming bass, resolutely unfancy drumming and echo-drenched vocals and guitars. Even when Peter Bjorn And John let loose on tracks like Young Folks and The Chills, the provoked effect is more hands-in-pockets shuffling than frenzied bodypopping.
From the opening, 16-second atmosphere-setting soundscape of the title track to the final few seconds of Poor Cow - and we're happy to be proved wrong if anyone can find a song which falls apart so ornately - Peter Bjorn And John hardly put a foot wrong for the duration of Writer's Block. It's the kind of album which delicately reveals a little more to the listener with each listen, but the pick of the crop at the moment are Start To Melt - which sounds like The Velvet Underground covering Loveless by My Bloody Valentine, the hypnotic euphoria of Paris 2004 and Roll The Credits, one of the only six and a half minute songs in living memory which never even hints at outstaying its welcome.
There's been a lot of talk lately about Young Folks turning Peter Bjorn And John into one-hit wonders. If that means that they'll stop making albums as deliriously gorgeous as Writer's Block, we're going to have to pray that doesn't happen.
Stuart Heritage
PBS106.7FM.ORG.AU
There is a lot of hype surrounding Peter Bjorn and John, so far only famous for a little ditty known as The Whistle Song by the NOVA FM posters that used to be along Swanston Street or, Young Folks to the more educated audiences.
With that in mind, it’s little wonder that most people will underestimate the skill that this trio possesses, after all Young Folks AKA The Whistle Song is a track that includes a well themed whistle and a guest vocalist mewling over the top! I can sense the eyes rolling. Is it possible to be any more clichéd and crafted than this? But Young Folks is a song that sticks in your head; it’s a song that’s just in time for the summer. Not only that, it’s cute and smiley and still somewhat indie.
Strangely enough this album is actually a rather brilliant slice of music with indie pop sensibilities. It opens with a strange, mysterious carousel tune before kicking into Objects of my Affection – a big, sweeping, strumming guitar number that flows straight into your heart and paints a picture of good times and great hits.
Peter Bjorn and John, obviously Swedish, have created an album in which they have somehow managed to cram an array of sounds and influences together. There’s a hint of Spanish guitar, female guest vocalists, electronic styling and yes, even the whistling, which appears to seem less like a hideous novelty and more like a newly discovered sound that has previously never been heard by human ears before. Of course there are bands that Peter Bjorn and John will be compared with, but it’s not that they sound like everyone else, rather they have taken the best parts of everything else that is out there and melded it together to create this gem of an album.
Paris 2004 is another song that I can only describe as absolutely charming. The rhythm and the lyrics portray what I can presume was a fantastic trip, one about discovery and life: “You don’t have to tell, cause I know so well, what we are all after”. It’s a happy track that oozes with summer goodness. I can feel myself smiling and a strange, warm feeling growing in the pit of my stomach as the track plays.
Up against the Wall has some very familiar qualities, it’s almost straight up indie with bit of an experimental sound, ala Modest Mouse or even something more Gerling-like. Let’s Call It Off could have filtered through from the 70s; The Chills sounds like what would happen if Bloc Party met The Cardigans. Writers Block is one, long endless game of pointing and going ‘I remember who this reminds me of’, a game which gets you overly excited and keeps your pinned ears to the stereo. It immerses you in an aural pastiche of some of the more intelligent and better sections of music that is out there.
Peter Bjorn and John’s Writers Block is just good. It’s bloody good.
Linah Tan
OTHERMUSIC.COM
The Swedish pop invasion is old news at this point and frankly, I've lost count of how many new Scandinavian groups have been gracing our shelves as of late. That said, Peter, Bjorn and John are at the top of my list, right next to Love Is All, and I'm actually surprised at how much I like their new album. With each of the three members (we already know their first names) contributing songs, Writer's Block is a stylistically diverse record, not necessarily cohesive but all the better for it. I guess the common denominator here would be classic indie pop, and I can hear lots of influences, from the Soft Boys to Galaxie 500, but there are certainly traces of R&B, '60s, power pop and, of course, a little Velvet Underground. Kicking off with the shoegazey strum-fest of "Objects of My Affection," the album quickly shifts into some skeletal pop via "Young Folks," where whistling is used in place of guitar leads, and the Concretes' former singer Victoria Bergsman trades charmingly pensive verses with Peter. The album then takes a bit of a cerebral pop turn with "Amsterdam," which conjures images of OMD collaborating with the Beatles, complete with more whistling, and instruments like whip and footsteps credited to John. It doesn't let up, as Writer's Block constantly morphs from song to song with very few disappointments -- the harmony-filled "Let's Call It Off" isn't bad but feels like filler when compared to most of the track selection -- and then, three-quarters of the way through we reach another highlight, "The Chills," a surprisingly haunting slice of detached synth-pop. The thing about Writer's Block is that each song has a certain I've-heard-it-before familiarity to it, but still remain fresh to the ears. The more I listen, the more it doesn't get old.
GH
TREBLEZINE.COM
ALBUM OF THE WEEK. In the confusion of falling for someone there is an almost palpable suspension of the past—one is released from his or her history. We fall in love in a vacuum, when we truly allow ourselves to fall, and while the immediate surroundings and particular events may be engraved into our memories forever, and, in fact, seem exceedingly real and vivid, what has come before can appear, however momentarily, fictional. Then, of course, it comes back in a rush, the historical you eclipsing the temporarily-undefined-by-passion you. The initial sense of euphoria is diluted by the impending necessity of self-revealing, of coming clean. In short, the messy business of who we have been colliding with who we are.
Obviously, it is not only relationships which draw us into such jarring recognitions. On a perfectly ordinary day, any number of things occur which can trigger the sudden comprehension of drastic changes undergone in the past months or years. One such event, the one I am concerned with here, is coming into contact with an album full of songs which evoke the past, the present, and the people inhabited in between.
By no means was this my initial take on Writer's Block, the third album by the comma-free Stockholm trio Peter Bjorn and John (Peter Morén, Björn Yttling and John Eriksson). Rather, I think I felt the same sensation as a lot of other people when they heard the record's first single "Young Folks" for the first time, namely, intoxication. From its beginning—a fanciful clatter of drums, maraca shaking, bongos, woozy bass, and, most prominently, whistling—an irresistible spell is cast. The song, a duet with The Concretes' Victoria Bergsman, is both a triumph of subtlety and fantastically danceable. Its subject matter is the aforementioned vertigo inherent in a new relationship, the pleasurable dizziness of its initial emotional magnitude. The dilemma is crystallized in the opening lines:
"If I told you things I did before
Told you how I used to be
Would you go home with someone like me?
If you knew my story word for word
Had all of my history
Would you go home with someone like me?"
Now, I have listened to this song an ungodly amount of times and what continues to fascinate me is the way the import of the lyrics matches up with the feeling aroused by the music. The verses, largely an affair of bass, drums and perfectly-wearied vocals, are given a slightly unnerving atmosphere by the melodic keyboard drones which rise slowly into the mix. And then, just as beguiling, the manic surge of the chorus, fluttering in the bones, capped by the assertion of both vocalists: "All we care about is talking, talking only me and you." "Young Folks" is a portrait of the kind of beginning that we will again and again experience though we know it leads, often as not, to disaster rather than paradise.
"Objects of Affection," with its walls of guitar noise and pummel of drums, is both an example and observation of the way small and random events lead us into intense rumination. Hearing a song that you used to listen to can be a gateway into questions like, "Was I more alive then than I am now?" Morén's answer, here, is a definitive no. The song is about getting older as well, about the attempt to live more deeply as one ages, that proposition so often deemed impossible by "those who know." Peter Bjorn and John are still making idiosyncratic pop in the same vein as their last album Falling Out, but the edges have grown sharper and everything is tighter, the lyrics, the instrumentation, everything; all the parts are in the right places, complementing each other and deepening the whole. A major reason for this appears to be the production of Yttling, which not only succeeds in bringing out the essential strength of the songs, but manages to enhance it.
Two excellent examples of this are "Up Against the Wall" and "Chills," at once skeletal and endowed with warmth by delicately rendered passages. The former is hypnotizing, clocking in at over seven disarmingly effortless minutes. Dressed in the hazy gauze of daydreams, it drifts through the consciousness in unreal shades before slipping away. "Paris 2004" is a travelogue in song—a collection of specific details from a holiday, of events as well as emotions. The chorus consists of the unflaggingly giddy repetition of the lines "I'm all about you, you're all about me/ We're all about each other." The narration in present tense adds to the sense of staring at a snapshot, a moment in the past being captured and made into a song-object, but also being brought back to life, resuscitated within the song's sweet and buoyant exuberance.
Writer's Block is a mercurial work of art, one that, while brought forth from a relatively minimal palette, oozes with invention and confidence. Its simplicity belies its patient and thoughtful sculpting. Peter Bjorn and John have made a subtle and seductive album stuffed with songs that readily induce both dancing and meditation, that in their attempt to evoke and make sense of the past, affirm the present moment and the future to come.
Tyler Parks
THE MANEATER
SWEDISH TRIO DELIVERS. The anatomy of a perfect pop song is nearly impossible to decipher. There are elements in the best pop — effortlessly great vocals, unforgettable melody, masterful orchestration — that can be pointed to as necessities, but that’s just scraping the surface, and even those elements are vague and abstract.
There’s been a bevy of remarkable pop songs released this year, from Gnarls Barkley’s “Crazy” to Lily Allen’s “LDN” to The Pipettes’ “Pull Shapes.” They are all unique in ambition and execution, but when each song ends, it’s clear that something monumental has just occurred. And although great pop songs are released each year, it’s rare to see the release of a consistently listenable purely pop album.
So when a band like Sweden’s Peter Bjorn and John releases both an eye-opening single (“Young Folks”) and a consistent pop album, it’s kind of something to behold.
Writer’s Block is not exceptional by any means, but it is significant because in the context of the album, its best tracks don’t come off as crowning achievements, but rather as parts of a bigger whole. Anyone who already knows about the band will surely have heard of it because of “Young Folks” popularity in the tubular world on the Internet. Its elements of genius are apparent in the first 10 seconds, from the so-simple-its-brilliant drum beat and the maracas to the whistling. The vocals, aided by ex-Concretes singer Victoria Bergsman, are cold and echoed, but the distance is necessary. As per the album, its brilliance is confined in its tightness. This band does not fuck around.
Conventional wisdom would say frontloading the album with your two biggest tracks, in this case “Young Folks” and “Amsterdam,” would leave the latter half susceptible to being ignored, but where Writer’s Block should falter (its middle third) is where the most staying power is found.
The restrained exuberance of “Paris 2004” is matched only by its wistful nostalgia and its airy vocals, chiming xylophones and needling acoustic guitar give the song the feel of a shining sun on a cold day. “Let’s Call It Off” takes that early afternoon mood and flips the script. Vocalist Björn Yttling sheds his skin as a forlorn lover and kisses off the album’s most confident chorus as guitarist Peter Morén adds Spanish-style guitar and a solo to the mix. It might not set the world on fire, but it’s a model of achieving triumphant pop consistency by knowing, elevating and highlighting your strengths. So fuck expectations and year-end lists — that’s good enough.
Jordan Sargent
MODERN MUSIC REVIEW (8.9 out of 10)
'Writers Block' (2006) is the third album from Swedish trio Peter,Bjorn and John.Recorded in Bjorn's studio in Hornstull, Stockholm the album sees the trio take a new direction by moving away from the straight-forward indie-pop of their previous releases.
Selecting wanderful music for holidays isn't easy job. Good music means regeneration.Moreover it's the mean of life. Life is a rhythm, if you able to catch that rhythm you'll be able to achieve succesful in your life. Listening good music is everthing.
In addition to this "good music", it's certainly relative for everyone so you should look for your own rhythm. Maybe you trust in someone like me about my musical tastes or you're not. There is no harm. As far as I know this searching is quite exciting.Explore!
Today we've one of these good chosen music... Actually i know , you got that this is a very good album. I believe that it's deeper to tell your feelings about the album than writing some descriptive commonplaces in a review. If you like that's the way, then here it comes; Airwaves ,tunes soft as snow, infectious beats , natural lyrics...
How about some influences;Lo-fi, noise rock, shoegaze are the main styles. Also there are some R&b, funk and soul roots. I found "Let's call it off" is god song and my new disease, play the song and dance above the skies. Closing song "Poor cow" is another impressive psychedelic work. You should listen and discover other ones and you would agree how hooky this album is. Also I found a cross between Jesus & Mary Chain's that epic sound, vocals , era. Furthermore, The band is influenced by the sounds of classic '60s baroque pop, power pop, and new wave, but the guys aren't revivalists.
Guitars isn't odd, they seems to be taken from 80s new wave, but if it's the only incomplete of "Writer's Block", therefore it's perfect. MM picks:Young folks, Paris 2004, Let's call it off
CLUAS.COM
Bringing whistling back to the airwaves for the first time since 'Winds Of Change' by The Scorpions, 'Young Folks' by Peter Bjorn and John has been one of the year's catchiest radio hits and still sounds refreshingly good even after umpteen listens. 'Writer's Block', their third album, features plenty more whistles, bongos and lo-fi vocals and shows that they've plenty more fine songs. The Eddie Cochran-style rock n' roll swagger of 'Let's Call It Off' makes for another standout track, another four minutes of uncomplicated pleasure.
This is an album about enjoying life - which is not to say it's happy-clappy fluff. 'Object Of My Affection' best expresses the manifesto of this record: "And the question is / Was I more alive than I am now? / I happily have to disagree / I laugh more often now / I cry more often now / I am more me." You could lock your emo bands and your singer-songers in a room for a week and they'd never come up with something so thoughtful, mature and true.
The playfulness of 'Young Folks' is a dominant feature of this record's sound - plenty of odd percussion and acoustic instruments. In particular, John seems to have had most of the fun - he's credited with 'whip', 'whoo!' and 'my first kick'.
The romantic imagery of 'Paris 2004' ("While I'm sleeping / You paint a ring on my middle finger with your black marker-pen") captures this album's spirit; life is for laughing, crying, living and loving - and for making good music. In every way, an album that's full of life.
Aidan Curran
SUNDAY TIMES
Who are they? The Swedish PB&J have already made two albums, though neither was released here. Their third, Writer’s Block, is a stunner: all Gallic 1960s pop, 5th Dimension harmonies, Beach Boys cooing, whistling, lo-fi DIY studio non-fakery, melodies and lyrics that pass through you like a warm midsummer breeze.
A recent survey on 2006’s likeliest big summer song yielded Maneater, Crazy and Lily Allen’s Smile. New Kids would have concurred, had we not heard PB&J’s Young Folks, a two-hander with the Concretes’ divine Victoria Bergsman. Its lyrics capture the first mad rush of new love (and the strange calmness and certainty that can exist at the centre of its storm) with heartbreaking beauty. You must hear it at once.
When’s the record out? Young Folks is released on July 31 on Wichita (listen at www.myspace.com/peterbjornandjohn), the album on August 7.
Can I see them live? At Barfly, NW1 (July 13), and touring.
Don Cairns
IT'S A TRAP
This record just may be the best one released in the pre-summer months, and will prove listenable throughout said sunny days and warm nights. Peter Bjorn and John offer up their third proper full-length here, and although I was skeptical at first, upon more listens I'm finding myself loving this. It could just be the trees and flowers blooming and that everytime I listen to the album it's bright and sunny out, but I also think it's the trio's songwriting. With this record they have honed their craft into lilting pop melodies, yet still retaining the sounds and production values older fans have grown to love. "Young folks" is a damn fine first single, but the real highlights are "Amsterdam", "Paris 2004", "Let's call it off" and "The chills", with the last song containing one of the most beautiful closings I've heard in a long while. It may take the older fans a little while to get acclimated to a happier Peter Bjorn & John, but once you do, you'll realize that this record fits perfectly in the collection of what is becoming a tour de force in Swedish music.
Matt Giordano
SONIC
BERGSLAGSBLADET
BAROMETERN
Peter Bjorn & John är ännu ett svenskt pophopp på export. Jag är inte särskilt överraskad för Falling out tillhörde 2004 års bästa släpp. Deras noisepop, lite som The Legends, med jangliga gitarrer och The Beatles-refränger träffade hårt och jag var groggy flera månader efteråt. Det fortsätter på tredje fullängdaren. Skillnaden är att influenserna blivit något fler och materialet är aningen - med betoning på aningen - svagare. Paris 2004 är full av The Magnetic Fields-vemod, Let's call it off är en snygg Eggstone-passning medan Start to melt och Objects of my afffection är traditionellt Comet gain:iga. Med på köpet får ni även vårens duett (Young folks) mellan Peter Morén och Concretes-Victoria, två av Sveriges skönaste vokalister.
Lyssna också på: Eggstone - Vive la différence!, The Legends - Up against the legends.
Wilhelm Askebring
COSMOPOLITAN (4/5)
Singeln Young folks låter sådär självklar att man undrar varför ingen har skrivit den förut. Låt inte den här melodisäkra trion förbli Sveriges mest underskattade band: de har smarta poppärlor nog för att trä ett väldigt långt halsband.
SMÅLANDSPOSTEN (4/5)
Den här Stockholmstrion har rotat fram den bästa gitarrpopen från 1980- och det tidiga 90-talet ur sina omsorgsfullt påkostade skivsamlingar. Sen har de suttit där och lyssnat, mints och till slut inte kunnat låta bli att göra en hyllning till hela härligheten.
Är man generationskamrat med dessa 30-åringar är det svårt att inte ryckas med. Men det handlar inte bara om nostalgi. Peter, Bjorn and John har lyckats skapa låtar som klarar sig bra även utan alla Cure-, Popsicle-, James-, Go Betweens-, och Primal scream-referenser.
Relationsnarcissistiska Young folks är festivalsommarens självklara ledmotiv med sin släpiga dansanta nonchalans. Här finns också Let's call it off som är som drömmen att bli det nya Beatles som den antagligen lät i en fuktskadad Londonlägenhet 1986, indiehymnen Up against the wall och den vemodigt efterhängsna The Chills.
Jag önskar att svensk popmusik hade låtit så här 1991.
Andreas Westergren
NÖJESGUIDEN
Young Folks är just den sortens nykära vårsång som gör världen god och kärleksfull. Naket ekande innehåller den precis rätt mängd nonchalant visslande, och med gästande Victoria Bergsman intill Peter Morén är den inte bara årets mest bedårande duett, den är också en logisk fortsättning på Peter Bjorn and Johns symbios med The Concretes.
På sin tredje skiva har för första gången alla trions medlemmar bidragit med leadsång. Det är en demokratisering som inte enbart är av godo, för trots att John Eriksson och Björn Yttlings bidrag inte är oävna håller inte alla experiment. Fortfarande är det Peter Moréns bitska röst och popsnille som ger Peter Bjorn and John sin särprägel.
Patrik Forshage
EXPRESSEN
Jag avgudar när den norrländska trion Peter, Bjorn and John gör snärtig sommarpop som i den helt bedårande singeln Young folks där Concretes sångerska Victoria Bergman gästar genom att sjunga sprött kompad av visslande och trummor. Eller den enkla, rakt på sak-popen i Objects of my affection och den unga lattjigheten i Amsterdam.
PBJ är helt oslagbara när de vill men tyvärr lite för ojämna för att det ska funka hela vägen. Hade de låtit bli att då och då förirra sig i skogsdunge-flum hade Writers Block varit en fullpott.
Quetzala Blanco
AFTONBLADET
Skillnaden mellan stor pop och kompetent pop är ibland hårfin. Svenska Peter Bjorn And John har alltid stått på gränsen till ett stordåd och viftat med passen – utan att lyckas passera tullen. M en de har aldrig kommit närmare än här. Tack vare storslagna och experimentella arrangemang samt melodier som slits sönder av melankoli och glädje.
Bästa spår: ”Objects of my affection”.
Markus Larsson
DAGENS NYHETER
I förväg kan man undra hur det här bandet - med sin meritlista och stora erfarenhet - ska kunna åstadkomma något som känns på riktigt. Risken är överhängande att de tre medlemmarna, som spelar med och producerar flera av landets bästa artister, gör en skiva som inskränker sig till att vara en platt samling snygga men blodfattiga referenser.
Man behöver inte lyssna länge för att höra att Peter Bjorn and John gör allting rätt, men ändå lyckas gjuta liv i sina idéer och ideal. Ljudbilden är snygg, indie men elegant, arrangemangen fulla av små överraskningar och blinkningar.
Svagheterna sitter i att det ibland saknas melodier och att rösterna inte riktigt alltid bär. Plockar man ur russinen ur kakan smakar det å andra sidan mycket bra, men räcker lite kortare. Singeln "Young folks" är en pärla, och "Up against the wall" nästan kanadensisk i all sin indiehet.
Po Tidholm
DIE WELTWOCHE
Was unsereiner immer wieder gern auflegt: stürmischen Pop, der zu Naivität, Überschwänglichkeit und Übertreibungen führt und letztlich wohl zur Reue – na und? «I laugh more often now», singen Peter Bjork And John in ihrem ersten Song, und: «I cry more often now». Das sind aber keine Heulsusen, sondern eben Sanguiniker im original early eighties mood. «Young Folks» startet mit busperen Drums, dann wird das Thema gepfiffen und von feinstem Boy/ Girl-Gesang aufgegriffen. Zum Lieblingssong kann’s auch «Amsterdam» schaffen, eine kleine Tragödie, in all ihrer abgrundtiefen Einzelschicksalbedeutungslächerlichkeit vorgetragen. Danke heisst tack.