Peter Bjorn and John are known for crafting shimmery, lovelorn pop songs, so the idea of the mild-mannered Swedish rockers recording an instrumental (ish) album isn't really so far-fetched. As evocative as the lyrics often are on 2006's Writer's Block, the bongo drums and whistled hook on "Young Folks" (to name just the group's most well-known track) spoke to listeners around the world in ways words never could. Since then, PB&J's Björn Yttling has produced some very good records in his own right, including Lykke Li's Youth Novels, Shout Out Louds' Our Ill Wills, and Taken By Trees' Open Field. Meanwhile, Peter Morén-- the band's most distinguished lyricist-- fell comparatively flat this year with a solo album.
Still, the best parallel to the limited-edition Seaside Rock comes from not the trio's own Stockholm, but over on the west coast of Sweden. There, in 2006, Gothenburg electropop duo the Tough Alliance followed their Swedish hit debut, The New School, with a limited edition release of a similarly instrumental(-ish) LP called Escaping Your Ambitions-- an ambient voyage through the nature sounds and aquatic sonic imagery that had already become a "thing" in their seaside city's scene. It would give the band an escape from the burdens (self-imposed and otherwise) of the dreaded sophomore album. Likewise, on Seaside Rock, PBJ's Morén, Yttling, and John Eriksson delay the inevitable pressures of following up Writer's Block with an album of dreamy, morning-after beach-party comedowns all their own, to mixed success.
At its best, Seaside Rock-- like Escaping Your Ambitions-- sounds less like a band chasing a trend than having bubbling sounds rise to meet them. As distant as the Air-like bass grooves of the drumless "Favour of the Season" may seem from Writer's Block, the song's details show a sensitivity to pop elegance and eloquence that's altogether different from the nu-disco spaciness of fellow Swedish seafarers such as the Studio. On "Needles and Pills", the staccato guitars of Balearic music swell to an orchestral crescendo akin to Morricone played by school children. Jangling, harmonica-led finale "At the Seaside" sounds almost as good as the Go! Team's near-instrumental "Feelgood by Numbers" if covered by the Chills. And it's not hard to imagine Morén cooing over the ocean sounds and rumbling pianos of "Barcelona".
PB&J take subverting expectations too far, though, with three tracks featuring guest spoken-word monologues in three separate Swedish dialects. It's sort of like the Scandinavian equivalent of the Fiery Furnaces bringing out Grandma for 2005's Rehearsing My Choir. With its sauntering acoustic guitars and harmonics, "Erik's Fishing Trip" (a possible play on the Daydream Nation title) would grace the opening credits of some post-Napoleon Dynamite comedy indie-flick-- if not for the man murmuring over it in Swedish. "Norrlands Riviera" swaps his voice for a woman's, some bird noises, and very little actual music; the darker "Next Stop Bjursele" is where the album's concept of kids just learning to play instruments is most evident, with martial woodwinds squaring off against foghorns at a march-like pace. "Rock me, rock me, rock me, rock me," this track's monologuer concludes (in English).
As beautifully assembled as parts of Seaside Rock are, a couple of genre-specific tracks underscore its stopgap nature. "School of Kraut" is basically what its title implies: a bit of krautrock motorik topped by childishly innocent orchestration. But ultimately, it just leaves a craving for the real thing (teachers, leave those kids alone). And the calypso-flavored "Saying Something (Mukiya)", with its simple, repetitive steeldrum melody, would work almost disturbingly well as the score to a Little Mermaid video game. For all Seaside Rock's stubborn contrariness, there are few signs that PB&J are actually suffering from writer's block quite yet; with luck, they're just biding their time.
