Review: Indie Singer Jens Lekman Spins Tales on ‘Life Will See You Now’
Singer Jens Lekman has always reveled in quirky,
whimsical storytelling, sort of like the indie-pop inverse of Tom Waits. His
fourth LP, Life Will See You Now,
presents 10 new vignettes with a bizarre cast featuring a Mormon missionary
seeking the meaning of life, a pair of friends joyriding on a hotwired Ferris
wheel in the middle of the night and a man curiously examining a 3-D printout
of his own tumor. One disco-y tune recounts “How We Met, the Long
Version,” but it goes back to the Big Bang. Although Lekman’s voice
sometimes sounds like Morrissey doing a Kermit the Frog impression, he revels in strong
songwriting and brilliant hooks played on steel drums, funky horns and hip-hop
bells.