The Lacking Permanence

As you may suspect, Peter Bjorn and John hail from Sweden, and as you may expect, they do Anglophonic indie pop better than the Anglophones.

The Woolly Bushmen may look young, but they sound like a rusted IROC Camaro with a busted manifold roaring out of the 7-11 parking lot.

The topologist carefully unfolded the graph depicting prime number frequencies. Across the scrub, the baker was returning from the Unimog, having concluded the search, and from the looks of their empty hands, unsuccessfully. They must have left it in the cab back in Calabar. Wonderful. Together, they considered the placement of the carved stone monoliths before them, their geometric arrangement random to the average visitor, but a clear reflection of order to the ancient people of Alok Ikom, and apparently, also related to the graph before them, with cataclysmic mathematical consequences.

“Fearless” is a good word to use for this fully-formed funk outfit, as are “fierce,” “fiery,” “finessed,” “futuristic,” and so many effing others. A blend of precision and groove that does well on repeat.

A fluid mixture of influences and identity, with tropical flavors and delicate pop sensibilities layering up with street-tough attitude for some songs, like a leather-jacketed hoodlum holding a bouquet of roses.

The strategist made to pick up a card, then withdrew their hand. A cool breeze, laden with yesterday’s afternoon dust, stirred through the empty square near the Musée Ahmed Zabana, knocking discarded paper cups against the stone table’s legs. The tandem scooter, not something you usually see in these parts of Northern Africa, come to think of it the world, leaned against the bench the investigator slouched on. “Make your move” their eyes implored in exasperation, as the pair waited for the gift shop to open.

No topic is too esoteric for John Darnielle to base an entire Mountain Goats album on, not even the persecution of pagans as a wave of Christianity moved through Europe in the middle ages.

Nailing the indie guitar sound is one thing, but Born Ruffians have become so adept at it that it’s more like lathering it in epoxy, then bolting it down, and adding some rivets for good measure.

Sultry, measured vocals are set off against an array of spiky arrangements and instrumental bursts, song parts constantly evolving and mutating, so that little finishes the way it started.

Jealousy is an intense driving artistic force, and nowhere is this more evident than with the recent tradition of releasing a covers album. These selections from Nilsson Schmilsson show a good variety of styles and approaches.