Jens Lekman: Life Will See You Now review – fresh lyrical vim

This fourth album by Gothenburg’s master of the indie story song song finds him reinvigorated after 2012’s heartbroken I Know What Love Isn’t, kicked up the arse by drum machines. It’s also infused with fresh lyrical vim by the Ghostwriting project, in which he worked from fan-submitted stories, and Postcards, in which he released a song each week for a year. Postcard #17 appears here, and its more directly emotional night terrors offer a rich contrast to the customary charming-yet-wily wordplay of the dreamily new-romantic Tracey Thorn duet Hotwire the Ferris Wheel, the tropical house touches of What’s That Perfume That You Wear, in which olfactory associations of lost love hit like a gut punch, or the puppy-bouncy To Know Your Mission, which restates Lekman’s credo – “In a world of mouths, I want to be an ear” – through the story of a teenage Jens explaining his ambitions to a Mormon stranger. It’s a gospel worth spreading.