Sondre Lerche

I still need to write up my summary of the great Norway trip, but for now, listening to Sondre Lerche's latest will help.

For more than a decade, Norwegian-born singer-songwriter Sondre Lerche has made pop music his primary weapon in a full-frontal charm offensive...On Please, his seventh studio album, the kiss-off song "Lucifer" hits unusually hard — as hard as the menacing funk into which the similarly misanthropic "Bad Law" ultimately descends.

Lerche gets sweeter — and certainly more bittersweet — in "Lucky Guy" and elsewhere, even as he sings, "I'm no sentimentalist" (in "Sentimentalist"). But Please finds Lerche sharpening his edges throughout: This is, after all, his dreaded divorce album, inspired by his own recent experiences. The singer hurls blame fairly evenly, and omnidirectionally, in many of these 10 songs. But, more importantly, his personal losses and failings come re-purposed in an album that's loose, feisty, energetic, and fully recharged — the work of a guy who understands that tearing down doesn't do much good if you don't bother building something better.