Anyone worried that Jens Lekman’s extended hiatus might have dulled his lyrical eccentricities need only listen to this album’s opening track to have those fears allayed.
“I write songs sometimes but they’re kind of bad; if this doesn’t work out I want to be a social worker, just like my dad,” he croons on To Know Your Mission.
The Swedish singer-songwriter spends the remainder of his fourth album sounding either toe-curlingly naff or earth-movingly brilliant.
So there’s the Coldplay-on-ukulele of How Can I Tell Him – a song so bad it invites the response: “Tell him however you want, Jens, just make it quick” – next to the funky and formidable How We Met, The Long Version.
The result is a wonderful disaster of a record that manages to be both great and grating – but never boring.
(Secretly Canadian)
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