ALL MUSIC GUIDE REVIEW:
Peter Bjorn and John are three guys from Stockholm who have a knack for fine power pop-influenced and new wave-tinged guitar pop. Peter handles the vocals and guitars, John the drums, and Bjorn mans the bass and various keyboards; between them they have created a fresh and exciting record that is packed with great songs and intriguing sounds. Falling Out is their American debut and it sounds like the work of a band that has been perfecting its sound for years (as they in fact have since 1999). Their tunes are colored by glockenspiels, Speak & Spells, zithers, omnichords, and cheap synths and built on wonderfully inventive and heartfelt arrangements. Beneath the rich and varied sounds are some truly powerful songs. The up-tempo tracks are tense and tough, and Peter's rasping and heart-on-sleeve vocals ride the melodies like a Joe Strummer who was grounded in pop rather than punk. Tracks like "Far Away, by My Side," the surging "It Beats Me Every Time," and "Money" clatter and soar and stick to you like marmalade. Connect the dots and you end up at the New Pornographers or Spoon. As fine as these tracks are, the soul of the record is in the ballads, and that soul has a darkness that comes only from heartbreak. "Does It Matter Now" oozes pain and sports a wrenching guitar-destroying climax. "All Those Expectations" builds from calm acoustic balladry to devastating passages of jagged guitars and mournful harmonica. "Big Black Coffin" is the centerpiece of the album, a big ballad complete with magisterial horns. The rising and falling dynamics and Peter's aching vocals place the song in epic-ville, not far from Wilco if Wilco were three pop-loving Swedes with a Spector influence and a Springsteen heart. Songs like that and "Tailormade," another track that will leave you slack-jawed at the sheer power, place them very close to the best indie rock — no, just plain music — being made in 2005. More punk than the Concretes, less frantic than the Shout out Louds, as catchy as the most tuneful of the U.K. post-post-post-punk merchants, Falling Out firmly establishes Peter Bjorn and John as a group to watch out for. Strike that. They are a band that has arrived in all senses of the word. (Tim Sendra)

ALL MUSIC GUIDE BIO
ALL MUSIC GUIDE REVIEW FOR "TEEN LOVE" EP

NEUMU REVIEW:
From my first listen to the second album from the three Swedes known as Peter Bjorn and John, I was hooked. Displaying a wider range of influences than most of their geographic peers, the trio creates timeless pop that could've been made just about any time over the past 40 years, yet makes it all sound as fresh and vital as a spring day. Or a daisy. Or first love...

HIGH BIAS REVIEW:
The alliance of Swedes Peter Morén, Bjorn Yttling and John Eriksson produces an almost unnaturally good pop record in Falling Out. Lyrics obsess over sentiments like "Even little kittens lick the milk they've spoiled," but the brightly-colored hooks and Morén's boyish singinga perfect blend of Michael Penn and Neil Finnmake the bitter pills slide smoothly gulletward. On "Big Black Coffin," "All Those Expectations" and "It Beats Me Every Time," the trio's arrangements are so friendly and its melodic touch so assured that they can make a song cycle about conflict and loss as irresistibly enticing as a fresh apple pie on an unguarded window sill.

THE ONION AV CLUB MUSIC IN BRIEF REVIEW:
Swedish trio Peter Bjorn & John dice up stately '50s pop, Blonde On Blonde-era Bob Dylan, British freakbeat, new wave, power pop, American indie rock, and random snippets of electronics on their second album, Falling Out (Hidden Agenda), which should be classified alongside The Shins and The New Pornographers as part of the worldwide movement to make guys with guitars relevant again. Choice cuts: the ironically sunny, sky-wide "Big Black Coffin," and "Far Away, By My Side," which alternates "doo doo doo"s and the robotic voice of a Speak & Spell...

AVERSION REVIEW:
The keyboards, harmonica, violin and other dressings add style, but they’re simply superfluous extras laid on top of the band’s skeletal power-pop arrangements. Fortunately Falling Out’s power-pop base is soundly laid, as the act splits the difference between Squeeze’s new-wave colored pop and the modern pop of bands like The New Pornographers...

KAFFEINE BUZZ REVIEW:
Falling Out by Peter Bjorn And John is songs about just that, and "some about falling in as well, but mostly out." This debut album from the Swede trio also responsible for producing/arranging fellow groups such as the Concretes and the Shout Out Louds is full of bittersweet pop. It embodies all the pleasantries of Beatlesque melody, but with a modern Scandinavian twist. My favorite track was the opener, 'Far Away, By My Side'- a tender ballad of longing. It commences with a scratchy computerized vocal, that continues throughout the track. For the first few listens, I found it unnecessary. After that however, I can see how it emphasizes the distance and the loneliness. This album is far from pop-by-numbers; it's cleverly woven and engineered. In Falling Out the band take refuge in solitude, at the bar, and in love. Should you need sheltering from any of these things, they've provided a record to comfort you.

INK 19:
Culling melodies from such stalwarts as The Beatles and Elvis Costello could lead a band head-first into cliché and irrelevance, but Peter Bjorn and John temper the well-known with the willfully obscure, like the Speak & Spell burbling undercurrent on "Far Away, By My Side." The rest of the disc is much more straightforward than this track, but, as always, the pop is distilled to Scandinavian perfection.

INDIEBLOGHEAVEN:
Peter Bjorn and John's "Falling Out," is what Spoon or the New Pornographers would do if they came from Sweden. Although they have been around since 1999, this is their first release in America...an absolute must own for any power-pop fan.

SPLENDID REVIEW:
This Swedish triumvirate's party piece involves softening the edges of wiry garage rock ditties with shots of blue-eyed soul. Their fixation on The Velvets and Elvis Costello's most saccharine elements leaves a decidedly indie-pop aftertaste, but declarations like "What am I supposed to do when I don't care? / It beats me every time" smack of a disaffected Iggy circa 1969. Add a perpetually deferred feeling of relief and satisfaction ("I was drinking what you drank / still I don't feel good / Not at all, not at all"), and bam! -- delightful melodies crust over into a yellow fever-breeding puddle of disenchantment. Think of it as trading in an anorak for a third-hand tweed jacket scavenged from a snoozing wino. This looming darkness doesn't mean that there isn't a lot of fun to be on Falling Out. "Money" oscillates between a reverb-plated echo chamber and a Reagan-era homecoming dance, while "It Beats Me Every Time" cooks up a bouncy stomp 'n' clap, and a cover of The Concretes' "Teen Love" whips itself into a Ted Leo shakedown. The lyrics might be a bit of a downer, but Falling Out never runs short of viable, energetic approaches to the pop aesthetic.