Jens Lekman's music sounds like a crescent moon over a field of frozen dandelions, possessed with an uncommonly stark, ethereal beauty. He's an impeccable pop tunesmith, a first-rate arranger and the best thing to come out of Sweden since Ace of Base.
Lekman's latest release, Oh You're So Silent Jens, is categorically the best album of the winter. Not just because it's so good (although it is so very good), but because it's the perfect complement to all those sappy, gossamer winter moments, snowball fights in slow motion and drives through neighborhoods lined with Christmas lights. Chalk it up to his alpine roots, but Lekman has made the most decorous record of the season, and he did it without a single dog barking the tune to "Silver Bells."
Oh You're So Silent Jens isn't a proper album; it's a collection of singles and rarities dating back to 2003. Lekman, who swore after last year's When I Said I Wanted To Be Your Dog that he'd never make another full-length again, works rather well in the context of a two- or three-song cluster, one offhand masterpiece after another. Stuck front-to-back as these pieces are on Oh You're So Silent Jens, the resulting album plays like a greatest hits collection for an artist who'll probably never be seen on American charts.
Which is not to say he shouldn't. The often symphonic, always statuesque pop found on Oh You're So Silent Jens is as pleasing to the ear as anything you're likely to hear on the radio, or for that matter, anywhere else. Song-of-the-year candidate "Maple Leaves" is nothing but roller-rink couples-skate bliss, right down to the disco drums and Jens' breathy vocals. It shows up twice, in two not dissimilar but equally superb versions. "Pocketful of Money" starts out pretty and sad and winds up demented and sad. "I Saw Her it the Anti War Demonstration" is just about as catchy as a song can be; you've got handclaps, strings and come-ons involving vegan pancakes. "Sweet Summer's Night on Hammer Hill" is silly but even catchier. And that's just a random sampling: Each listen to Oh You're So Silent Jens will lead you to a new favorite.
There are shades of such veteran pop craftspeople as The Magnetic Fields' Stephin Merritt, Robyn Hitchcock and even a lucid Syd Barrett in Lekman's music. But his songs are so much more natural, his arrangements more economical and his voice (not his strong suit) a lot more approachable than those of the three other weirdos. Fans of indie-pop will eat this up, but there is something on Oh You're So Silent Jens for anyone who's ever been in love with a song. Lekman holds a rare gift: the ability to pen a song as confessional as Elliott Smith and dress it up with an almost otherworldly elegance like a nickel-and-dime George Martin. Oh You're So Silent Jens, is an accidental triumph. But Lekman's wondrous, frostbitten talent is no accident.
