Review: Jens Lekman - I Know What Love Isn't

Jens Lekman has been relatively quiet since the release of his last full length, the critically acclaimed Night Falls Over Kortedala, 5 years ago. For 5 years, Lekman toured, weighed the idea of quitting music, got his heartbroken, and in September of 2011 he released a scant 5 song EP, An Argument with Myself. As he discusses in an excellent interviewfor the music blog Stereogum’s ProgressReport, during his off time the Swedish born singer songwriter reevaluated his approach to music. The end result is the album that Lekman set out not to create, the epitomic heart break album, I Know What Love Isn’t.

Over two albums and one compilation, Lekman has crafted a finite image, placing himself as Indie Music’s lovelorn troubadour. With an often witty approach, Lekman tackles the complications of human relationships while focusing most acutely on young and/or unrequited love.  Previous albums have been strongly driven by storytelling and detailed, graphic songwriting. I Know What Love Isn’t does not abandon this approach but grows from this foundation, crafting songs that build more on an idea while showcasing a concise understanding of pop songwriting.

Lekman’s previous album, Night Falls Over Kortadala, was lush and grandiose both lyrically and instrumentally. Though the end result was a gorgeous finished product; at times it could be cumbersome and the lyrics a bit hindered with wordiness and descriptive details. However, with I Know What Love Isn’t Jens Lekman finds comfort in simplicity and a return to the style of his debut album When I Said I Wanted to Be Your Dog and the early compilation Oh You’re So Silent Jens. However I Know separates itself from his early output with a developed succinctness in the songwriting. The new songs are catchy and simplistic, divesting themselves of awkward bulkiness to deliver a crystalline portrait.

At just over 35 minutes I Know What Love Isn’t is a brief listen. The brevity plays to the artist’s advantage, as it invites repeat listens. The album opens with an overture of sorts in “Every Little Hair Knows Your Name”, which shares its title with the final track. A solo piano delivers the theme of the aforementioned final track. This short introduction is followed by the album’s first single, “Erica America”, a breezy affair supported by piano, guitar, drums and chimes. Lyrically the song is the typical fare with a name drop to one of his idols in, “Frank Sinatra had his shit figured out after school”. The song however does not display the same optimism as previous records with each chorus opening with, “Erica America”, and then a different set of lines such as, “I wish I’d never met you / Like I wish I’d never tasted wine or tasted it from lips that aren’t mine / Now every drop tastes more bitter all the time”. Near the end of the song there is a breakdown that gives each instrument, including the backup singers, a moment to shine alongside a saxophone solo.

The third track, “Become Someone Else’s”, continues the melancholia but displays Lekman’s penchant for wit with, “Jennifer called told me about her latest admirer / I said someone should make a pamphlet called ‘So You Think You’re in Love With Jennifer’”.  Again the piano is heavily featured and carries the song along a bouncy jaunt while Lekman details a hope to become detached from his previous relationship and become someone else’s. He compares the experience to lying on your arm until it falls asleep.

“She Just Don’t Want to Be With You Anymore” is a sample heavy ballad. Again the track is driven forward by piano highlighted by a sample of water droplets, an even keel drum machine, and a few handclaps at the chorus. Near the end of the song there is a string solo that sounds grainy as if recorded off an old tube radio. The solo reinforces the somber tone. The following track, “Some Dandruff on Your Shoulders”, picks up the pace a bit. The title refers to the line, “It’s nothing at all, it’s just the pressure with which you hold my hand / It’s really nothing at all, it’s just some dandruff on your shoulder”, which is in response to someone asking the narrator what is wrong. The tail end of the song surges with saxophone and builds into an orchestral disco jam as a female voice repeats the chorus before fading.

A simple guitar strum introduces “I Want a Pair of Cowboy Boots”, which is one of the album’s standout tracks. Lekman’s voice lilts between a tenor and baritone. The chorus, “In my next dream, I want a pair of cowboy boots / The kind that walks the straightest and most narrow route / Anywhere but back to you”, is decorated by a steel drum. The song closely resembles Jens earlier work on the compilation Oh You’re So Silent Jens; a simple song constructed around a concrete image and sentiment. Following “I Want a Pair of Cowboy Boots”, the album takes a slight change in direction. Lekman begins to look at things a bit more realistically; he steps away from the grandiose emotion.

“The World Moves On” finds Lekman again flirting with dance music. The song features the most ornate instrumentation: a funky guitar line, windswept flute, danceable drumming, a backdrop of light piano work and a few finger snaps for good measure. The song chronicles a relationship that starts off with, “We made out in every bar while the state of Victoria burned down to the ground,” and a series of unfortunate events that follow the break up, including a bike wreck and failed interaction with a friend. The song also contains possibly the most self assured sentiment, “You don’t get over a broken heart / You just learn to carry it gracefully”.

The album continues its forward momentum into the next track, “The End of the World Is Bigger than Love”. The introduction is sunny, featuring a jangly piano, sputtering keys aloft on a bed of strings. The song proposes things that are much worse than the end of a relationship, namely the end of the world. The summery disposition bleeds into the next track, “I Know What Love Isn’t”. The song chronicles Lekman and a friend going out to find women because he is interested to find out if his friend and him have similar taste, “Do you like blondes or brunettes, the cocooned or coquetted”. The protagonist finds the perfect woman in a car beside him before reaching his destination and woos her with, “I don’t know what love is but I know what it isn’t”. He then suggests getting married for the citizenship, but the relationship is doomed when the girl admits that she does not enjoy attending concerts.

The album closer, “Every Little Hair Knows Your Name” is the album and Jens Lekman at his most pessimistic. Though past albums have dabbled in cynicism they have also displayed a strength and self reliance where as “Every Little Hair” is unabashed vulnerability over an unadorned and simple guitar line. The song rests on the premise that despite time there are still constant reminders of her at every corner: “Every cell in this body has been replaced since I last saw you but the memory is in the DNA” and “I wrote some songs when we broke up but nothing came out so I stopped / Every cord I struck was a miserable cord / Like an F minor eleven or E flat major seven / It all sounds the same, every cord knows your name”. Lekman gives his heartbreak immortality. That despite time, moving on, or even getting over it there will in a way always be a reminder, an indelible mark of that relationship.

Though the album is often mired in cynicism; it is handled with a level of wry wit and whimsy. The songs switch comfortable between solemn ballads and more pop oriented, dance leaning songs. The end result is Lekman’s most mature album to date which uses simplicity and brevity to play to his strengths as a song writer. The limited musical palette and subject matter also open up the songs to a higher level of accessibility and relatability. Though past albums have provided plenty of relatable moments, the power of a first kiss or the excitement of spotting someone from across a crowded room, the stories have created an isolated view point. A view point crafted from a caricature of Jens Lekman. But that cartoon is forgone and something very personal and deeply vulnerable has taken its place.

4, one of the most enjoyable listens thus far this year.