Peter Moren preview
Peter Morén, Tobias Fröberg
Schubas, Chicago
Saturday, April 26, 2008
The Peter of Peter Bjorn And John might seem like he’s exploiting his band’s recent success by releasing a solo outing. A quick check, however, reveals that the breakthrough Writer’s Block (Wichita) was actually the trio’s third album. Now it’s Peter Time.
On the plus side there’s no whistling, though we can only say “maybe” when asked if his artisitic backlog is worth hearing. Morén is either PBJ’s serotonin or he expends all of his energy for them. The Last Tycoon (Quarterstick), like the Fitzgerald novel from which its title comes, feels unfinished. Fitzgerald had an excuse — he died. Morén only seems to on this surprisingly quotidian, singer-songwriter affair.
Some loopy, European-tourist rhyming aside, it’s easy to judge the album by how much its standouts (“My Match,” “Social Competence”) overshadow their eight neighbors. “My Match” comes closest to the atmospherics of Writer’s Block, while the bitingly lonely, I Am Kloot-ish “Social Competence” is the only time you feel like Morén has something to say, and its riposte to a snub stings like a slap. Otherwise Tycoon does little to brighten the connotative cloud above the words “side project.”
Casual music fans would probably recognize opener Tobias Fröberg on the marquee first, if only because the Swede has been recording under his full name for some time. It’s hardly a surprise to have him on this tour, too, as he produced Morén’s Tycoon and the headliner is a guest on Fröberg’s own Turn Heads Now (Cheap Lullaby), along with Ane Brun and Kathryn Williams.
The many fans of 2006’s Somewhere In The City (a hit in Europe and the U.K.) might fire angry e-mails to iTunes demanding the real Fröberg after downloading Heads opener “Blissful.” Its finger-in-the-socket hyper pop bears little resemblance to Somewhere‘s wistful but often rainy Paul Simon and Nick Drake-isms. Heads immediately dampens, though its occasional heart-tugging heft certainly outperforms Morén’s ennui.
— Steve Forstneger
Category: Stage Buzz, Weekly
