Peter Bjorn and John - Breakin' Point (Album Review)
Wednesday, 15 June 2016
Written by Ben Gallivan
It was always going to be tough for Messrs Morén, Yttling and Eriksson to come up with anything as relentlessly cheery and catchy as Young Folks.
Picked up all over the globe by eager marketing companies thanks to its whistled refrain, the song was the basis for many a barbecue in the glorious summer of 2006 and the centrepiece of ‘Writer’s Block’, their third album.
In the decade since its release, a few more LPs have followed from the trio, with 2009’s ‘Living Thing’ sadly overlooked by the general public despite decent reviews. ‘Breakin’ Point’ is their latest and first in a little over five years.
It all starts very promisingly with Dominos, a pulsating three-minute synth-pop song full of studio trickery (perhaps a little too much at times) and vocal gymnastics. The 11 songs that follow, though, are all so similar that you could be forgiven for thinking that the opener is simply on repeat.
Despite that, it still feels like the band have spent much of their time working out which order they might work in, rather than producing an album that mirrors the longevity of some of their earlier releases. There is also very little in the way of variety when it comes to the recording and presentation of the record, which is particularly disappointing given Yttling’s pedigree and the fact that that it includes production credits for Paul Epworth, Greg Kurstin and EmileHaynie.
The bombastic drums sound too fake to ever be recreated live and only In This Town and Between The Lines show signs of any earnest guitar work. The vocals are firmly in the ‘singing-by-numbers’ camp, too. They’re not lyrically poor or badly performed, just a little empty.
It’s a shame that Peter, Björn and John, who were at the forefront of the ‘Swedish invasion’ of the mid-2000s alongside the Knife, the Hives and Lykke Li, have fallen behind the times so impressively. ‘Writers Block’ this definitely isn’t – or is it?
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