4. Life Will See You Now / Jens Lekman

Our favorite Swedish pop troubadour returns with his first album in five years!  Life Will See You Now is packed with Jens Lekman's bittersweet brand of literate whimsy--guitars, pianos, horns, and strings set listeners aloft in what is perhaps his sunniest effort to date.  Bright and brilliant, blissfully melodic, the music ranges from disco, bossa nova, and sample-laden chamber pop, leaving behind a joyous string of Lekman's triumphs and heartbreaks.

The opening track, "To Know Your Mission," recounts 16-year-old Jens' conversation with a Mormon missionary.  It is likely the finest pop song ever written with references to Mormonism, treating faith with a spirit of generosity, and deftly using a young elder's higher purpose as a springboard to the artist's own dreams of telling people's stories.  "But in a world full of mouths / I want to be an ear / If there's a purpose to all of this / then that's why God put me here."  Amen, Jens.  An obvious amen.

As always, Lekman's modern vignettes are wildly specific and deeply affecting.  He sings about his friend's cancer and the many prayers offered on his behalf ("Evening Prayer"); his night of criminal mischief in an amusement park ("Hotwire the Ferris Wheel"); his first fight with his girlfriend that ends in the sweetest resolution ("Our First Fight"); his funny chat with the bride before singing at her wedding ("Wedding in Finistere"); his take on cosmic history that leads him to borrow his crush's bass guitar ("How We Met, The Long Version"); and his decidedly male struggle in trying to tell his best friend that he loves him ("How Can I Tell Him").  Listeners with cold dead hearts may find this all a bit too much, but others will revel in the humor, pathos, and sweetness that Lekman shares.  In each song, his writing reveals exquisite little epiphanies, his lovelorn wistfulness now yielding to a wide-eyed optimism.

Grappling with the uncertainty of whether the world wanted or needed his songs, Lekman experienced years of self-doubt and a severe case of writer's block.  At the urging of friends and fans, he finally started to write again, dedicating himself to penning a new tune a week in 2015, now collected as 52 numbered postcards.  This exercise produced some great songs in their own right and unlocked his creative genius for another masterful album that, truthfully, the world needs more than ever.  Lekman's music is an open-hearted invitation to think and love with more awareness and energy.

The D Man urges newcomers to explore his early lo-fi majesties (When I Said I Wanted to Be Your Dog and Oh You're So Silent Jens), his moving masterwork (Night Falls on Kortedela), his lilting sorrows (I Know What Love Isn't), and his newest collection.  It will become very apparent that Lekman is one of our most unique singer-songwriters, a vibrant gift to people of good will everywhere.