Mount Pleasure

by Stewart MasonThree albums into his career (not counting 2006's album of pop covers pa Svenska, Pengabrorsan), Swedish singer Anders Wendin, aka Moneybrother, has defined his musical style so thoroughly that Mount Pleasure contains no real surprises, but still entertains thoroughly. The short gloss on Moneybrother is that his key influences are Bruce Springsteen and the Clash, but it's the former that looms larger over his albums. "Just Another Summer" is a three-minute anthem that makes clear Wendin's deep and sincere debt to the Boss, particularly his '70s albums. Bands like the Arcade Fire, Marah and the Hold Steady are regularly compared to Springsteen these days, but it's Moneybrother, on songs as varied as the urgent rocker "It Is Time For Falling Apart" and the organ-driven top-down anthem "Guess Who's Gonna Get Some Tonight," who wears the Springsteen influence most proudly on his sleeve. Although the tuneful soft rock of "Will There Be Music?" and the gentle, acoustic-driven "I Know It Ain't Right" suggests that he's got more than a little Lindsey Buckingham on his iPod as well, and the faintly disco-pulsed rocker "Down at the R" blithely recreates the days when even the Rolling Stones were flirting with Giorgio Moroder-style beats. An effortlessly entertaining, unpretentious album, Mount Pleasure continues a grand winning streak.