Caught in the Carousel

Pelle Carlberg

In a Nutshell
Twenty Seven Records

“If I ever get happy,” sings Pelle Carlberg on his new album In A Nutshell, “then my songs will start to suck.” Given the overwhelming pop mastery of this album, let’s hope the boy stays a bit sad. Armed with the mellifluous narrative of Belle and Sebastian’s Stuart Murdoch and the self-effacing lyrical precision of Morrissey, Carlberg’s work is mournfully majestic. The opener (“Pamplona”) perfectly captures the moment when you realize the only way to prove your romantic slayer wrong is to do something amazing and wildly out of character--like travel somewhere far, far away. Unfortunately our narrator, who yearns to deliver a masculine and triumphant dispatch from another country, realizes too late (“Matador’s hat/ I need a Matador’s hat) that he lacks the goods. So the story is a bit of a bummer, but the pop reality is catchy, breezy and perfectly calibrated. In A Nutshell is loaded with gems, but they’re all treasures of varying shapes and sizes: “I Just Called To Say I Love You” is a doleful Smithsy wonder; “Clever Girls Like Clever Boys Much More Than Clever Boys Like Clever Girls” is powered by a series of handclaps; and “I Touched You At The Sound Check” tells the story of a chance meeting with Mike Joyce and sways away to the refrain of “Oh my, oh ma Mike Joyce.” Tons of winners here, but the album’s piece de resistance may very well be “Middleclass Kid” a tale of suburban angst, socioeconomic guilt and failed youthful ambition. Set to a rushing pop orchestration that suggests the mini-opuses of the Hidden Cameras and gives away an obvious reverence for the Beach Boys in the process, it’s a crushing look back that registers both longing and frustration. First rate work the whole way through.

—Alex Green