Peter Bjorn And John : Living Thing

2009 release from the Swedish trio. There was always going to be chatter as to how Peter Bjorn and John would follow up their album Writer's Block, a true pop phenomenon. Would they try to replicate their earlier success? Or go out of their way to release a willfully difficult new album? In actual fact, what they have done is a bit of both - and neither--all at the same time. Bolstered by the band's production, the first taster of the album, 'Lay it Down', was a delightfully off-kilter riposte, a jaunty flying-V in the faces of people who thought they'd had the band all figured out, with a harsh, treated vocal lifelessly intoning the threatening refrain before abruptly giving way to an anthemic, full-bodied singalong. The rest of the album walks a similar tightrope of melody and mayhem. Living Thing pulses with life, it is bursting at the seams with energy and vitality, and shot through with warmth and excitement and wonder.