Writer's Block

Pop perfection can be hard to predict. Do whacked-out bongo drums, slightly off-key whistling, and a kooky call-and-response sound like they'd add up to a good song? Certainly not. But does Peter Bjorn and John's "Young Folks," which features that very unlikely arrangement, sound like a hit? Instantly. The genial tour-de-percussion, which guest-stars the Concretes' Victoria Bergsman, has catapulted the Swedish trio to European fame. And with the track's appearance on Grey's Anatomy, stateside young folks should begin to come around too.

Appropriately, the other songs on Writer's Block don't sound much like "Young Folks." They don't sound all that much like each other, beyond an affinity for tastily off-kilter drums. But they're different because of what they share: a refreshing whimsy, the sort of friendly irreverence that means listing "Footsteps - Peter" and "Whoo! - John" in track credits.

Match that free spirit with blessed melodies and wistful vocals, and you've got some of the finer twee pop this side of Belle & Sebastian. "Amsterdam" borrows the shaker from "Young Folks" and puts it to its own uses. The song crosses vacant basslines, a snappy beat and echo-chamber vocals, musing moodily about time dragging on when "baby" takes a trip to the big canal. "Amsterdam" is, at face, a sad song, but like much of Writers' Block it's more pensive than gloomy. "The Chills" is also strangely inviting as it catalogs its hurts. "Your tongue is sharp, but I miss the taste of it/ You say time heals, there's not enough of it," the lads sing, over an icy bath of bass and synths. As a breakup song it's haunting, but for us is almost guiltily pleasant.

The converse is also true: the group's happy-time tunes carry a tinge of sadness. "Paris 2004" says, "I'm all about you, you're all about me/ We're all about each other," so why does Peter sound so blue? Against a gorgeous indie-folk tapestry -- warbling dulcimer, twinkly Spanish guitar -- the singer sounds like he's ending a relationship rather than savoring one. Once again, the song is so pretty it hardly matters.

And so it's an album of delightful contradictions: goofy instruments in sober breakup songs, paramours loathed and loved for the same reasons. The trio seems to feel everything so vividly that their songs have to nod to both sides. "Objects of My Affection" sums up their own take on the matter. An uncharacteristic wall of sound -- militant drums, frenzied guitars -- is justified by big revelations. Peter sings of the nostalgia that might afflict a man his age -- "And the question is, was I more alive/ Than I am now?" -- but comes to a welcome realization: "I happily have to disagree." And it's not that he feels better; it's that he feels more: "I laugh more often now/ I cry more often now/ I am more me."

By Jake Blaine