Sondre Lerche: Phantom Punch : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

Norwegian singer-songwriter Sondre Lerche built a devoted following stateside with a series of Starbucks-friendly albums that showed a gift for classic-pop melodies and rich, idiosyncratic guitar-keyboards-strings arrangements. Phantom Punch is a little different: It rocks amiably, with looser, simpler songs that range from near-punk to mild guitar-pop. Spunky winners like the title track suggest that Lerche has absorbed the early work of his tourmate Elvis Costello. Thoroughly enjoyable though it is, Phantom Punchalso feels a little lightweight: Short on truly memorable melodies and lyrics, pleasant stuff like "John, Let Me Go" and "Well Well Well" doesn't stick like it should. In the end, another reminder of a budding talent, but not more than that.