While at first it’s tempting to bracket youthful Stockholm pop starlet Lykke Li and her fine debut album Youth Novels in with Annie and Robyn and all those other blog-friendly Scandinavian pop songstresses, in all truthfulness it’s not a comparison that quite works. While those artists take a quite glossy, polished approach to pop artistry, Youth Novels sometimes feels quite makeshift in its design: an experimental record, albeit one that attempts to make sweet, addictive songs from unusual or unconventional elements. At first, you worry that her voice is too slight: on "Dance Dance Dance" she sounds childlike, backed by little but looped percussion and thrumming bass –- but the song gradually, majestically finds its feet, as first a madly soloing saxophone and then a full choir spirits in to her aid. And as it turns out, Lykke Li is actually a pretty tough cookie. "Little Bit" is superb confessional pop, a wispy lament over the lover that values you less than you value them, while "Complaint Department" is a wonderfully stern electro rattle built from fuzzy bass and tense drums, and a fabulously terse delivery: "If you want to complain/We are not the complaints department". Not that you will, of course: Youth Novels is a touching, intelligent debut, well worthy of attention.--Louis Pattison