It’s an odd little album, this.  Part Baroque pop, part twee indie, part experimental, slightly orchestral pop music.  I don’t exactly love all of it by any means, but it’s fascinating and there are some truly brilliant moments.

It’s a difficult review to write, this, because I couldn’t wholeheartedly say that I love this album, but I would most certainly say that when the harmonies kick in, when the melodies click, when it all makes sense, then this as good a record as I’ve heard in ages.  It can be all the Summery pop that every Swedish band in the world seems to wish it might be.  But that kind of burrowing exploration comes, from time to time, at the expense of the pop sensibility.

Given the number of people out there pimping themselves for a single memorable hook it seems slightly mean-spirited to complain that the sort of exploratory process that brings Mr. Sonnenberg so many infectious melodies occasionally leads him astray, but it does.  Lose it, of course, and the inspiration might well follow it into the distance.  So what we’re left with is a slightly obscure, slightly guarded journey on which Jon Sonnenberg scuffles about within the inner recesses of his musical attic and emerges, sometimes bearing long-lost fine china, and sometimes bearing a tatty old pair of pants that his great grandfather last wore in 1876.

Some of this is just fantastic, some of it doesn’t quite work.  I’ve no idea if I mean to be positive or negative about this review, but in general I reckon you should explore this record.  It’s peculiar at times, but from time to time there are moments of genuine clarity that many a chart-whore would give their right arm for.

Jon Sonnenberg – D.O.A.
Jon Sonnenberg – Pacific
Jon Sonnenberg - Everything Lies in Ruins

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