Peter Bjorn and John: Swedish Trio moves into the future via the '80s

These tuneful swedes had already been making records for four years by the time 2006's Writer's Block turned up on the playlists of everyone from NPR to Kanye West, and now it's time to follow up that commercial breakthrough. While 80s synth pop has come back into fashion after years in the critical wilderness, it still counts as a big creative shift for the trio to move so confidently into over-the-top electronic imitation on their fifth studio release. Still, Living Thing is hardly a reverent tribute to the era of Depeche Mode and Wham!, as the trio augment robot riffs and splashy drums with very human handclaps and vocal bass lines, never failing to mix up their experiments with gamelan-tinged garage rock and African guitar pop. The album is uneven by previous cut and dry standards, but the band earns high marks for proving their hooks can translate into any stylistic language.