Swedish-born songwriter Jens Lekman has a penchant for grand pronouncements, and his pop opuses are rife with strings, choirs, and samples (everything from Renaldo & the Loaf’s “Hambu Hodo” to his own childhood squeaks). On “Friday Night at the Drive-in Bingo,” Lekman chatters about white bunnies, apple cider, and mopeds over smarmy sax and chipper synths. His swoon may echo the drama of Stephin Merritt and Morrissey, but it’s his so-twee- it-hurts delivery that’ll make you feel like you’re at a roadside bingo hall in rural Scandinavia, waiting for someone to holler, “B8!”
