Peter Bjorn and John w/ Chairlift

Swedish trio Peter Bjorn and John’s “Young Folks”a whistled ditty that suggests a doe-eyed, indie-pop version of Carl Douglas’ “Kung Fu Fighting”captured the hearts of the masses two summers ago, bringing an audience to an album that critics nearly unanimously agreed deserved the success, 2006’s Writer’s Block. It’s hard not to see the trio’s latest record, Living Things, as an attempt to distance themselves from that inescapable hit, though. There’s no whistling this time around, and the cutesy, Beatlesque shine of their breakthrough record has been replaced by the chilly, funereal synths of ’80s bands like Tears for Fears and New Order, two groups that used the conventions of pop music to convey deeper, darker emotions than the Top 40 charts typically represent.