I’m From Barcelona – Let Me Introduce My Friends
I'm From Barcelona - Let Me Introduce My Friends
Two months after their second EP, Don’t Give Up On Your Dreams, Buddy!, Swedish pop band I’m From Barcelona (their name a clever homage to the inept character Manuel on the BBC’s hilarious 1975 comedy, Fawlty Towers) expanded those four tracks into their first full length album, Let Me Introduce My Friends. Best known for the twenty-nine band members they boast, you’ll hear a variety of instruments on this album from synthesizers and glockenspiels to pianos and tubas, not to mention clarinets, flutes, guitars and banjos. With all these people and instruments (not to mention the two tracks featuring Loney, Dear and Mathias Alrikson), the risk of chaotic divergences from too many contributing opinions seems imminent. Somehow, though, primary songwriter and lead vocalist Emanuel Lundgren keeps the group cohesive so that from one indie pop track to the next, the band’s sound is uniform—to the point where tracks seem indistinguishable.
Now don’t get me wrong, they’re catchy—but with their fast poppy pace, unrelenting cheer, and the glockenspiel’s chiming riffs, you look back on the album with the nagging sense that almost every track was a variation on the same tune. Lundgren also seems to revel in pop’s old love affair with nonsensical lyrics; you’ll hear the group singing everything from na na naas (“We’re From Barcelona”) to ba ba bahs (“Collection Of Stamps”). From track to track, their lyrics are never great and rarely even good. In “Chicken Pox”, Lundgren uses common childhood diseases typically not experienced twice—chicken pox, measles, scarlet fever—as a metaphor for love and heartbreak. If you think that sounds silly, I actually explained it more palatably than the song itself. If the composition were better, it’d be easier to overlook the lyrics, but with nothing presenting itself as stellar, unique, or even interesting, the metaphor seems stretched laughably thin. Lyrically, “Collection of Stamps” strikes out even worse. At least they used a literary device in the former song; here there’s no narrative, metaphor or higher theme. It is exactly what the title suggests. A meager song about a collection of stamps. Plenty from Poland, none from Sudan. Cool.
Unfortunately, I’m From Barcelona hasn’t quite got timing or order figured out–while some tracks seem short, abruptly cutting off instead of developing into fuller songs, others drag on. “Jenny” ends earlier than expected while “Treehouse,” an undeniably cute and catchy track, has me itching to hit next about fifty/sixty seconds from the end – perhaps because, like “Collection of Stamps,” the song is literally about a treehouse he built with no further detail; the what, why, where, how is apparently irrelevant. Meanwhile, “Barcelona Loves You” is a logical track to end on—catchy by itself, but also reminiscent enough of their stronger songs to leave you with a fond memory—and yet it’s second to last, followed by the short and seriously unimpressive “Saddest Lullaby” and its faster paced hidden track.
As a whole the album is a variety of things, not all of them flattering: poppy, cute, and fun but not serious. If you’re in the mood for feel good indie pop that doesn’t require too much of your focus while listening, then the saccharine-coated earnestness of their music—trying desperately, it feels at times, to convince you that, yes, they were all having a lot of fun while recording—is perfect. If you’re in the mood for anything serious, thoughtful, or inspired, move on.
