Professional ratings
Aggregate scores
Source	Rating
Metacritic	82/100
Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic
The A.V. Club	A−
Entertainment Weekly	B+
The Guardian
Mojo
NME	9/10
Pitchfork Media	8.5/10
Rolling Stone
Spin
Uncut

Writer's Block is the third album by Peter Bjorn and John. It was released on August 14, 2006. Taking a departure from the production of their first two albums, Writer's Block is an experimental, semi-concept album based around themes of the highs and lows of romance.

The inner sleeve art, as well as containing handwritten liner notes, features a tall, folding illustration of the building alluded to in the album title's wordplay, with each window of the building representing a song from the album. However, the true meaning of the title is said to be a reference to the Hornstull neighbourhood in Stockholm, where the band is based, which is said to have a high concentration of creative artists (hence 'Writer's Block'). The songs take inspiration from a variety of artists. While the album is said to have a slightly more stripped down sound compared to the guitar-dominated previous albums, the arrangements were still too complex in some cases to be played live in their original form- most notably 'The Chills' continues to be entirely reworked for live performances. Later, the album Gimme Some would aim to address this issue directly.

The album had three singles; "Young Folks" (featuring Victoria Bergsman, formerly of The Concretes on guest vocals), "Objects of My Affection", and "Let's Call It Off", the latter two using different versions of the songs than those found on the albums. All three songs had videos, the first music videos by the band. The track "Young Folks" was ranked at #5 on Pitchfork Media's list of the top 100 songs of 2006. Writer's Block was ranked at #24 on Pitchfork's list of the top 50 albums of 2006. The album is generally seen as one of the defining albums of the mid-2000s indie genre.

Writer's Block is the third and most commercially successful album by Peter Bjorn And John. Unlike the band's two earlier albums, which were more in the vein of revivalist music and influenced by songwriters such as John Lennon and Elvis Costello, Writer's Block marked a more experimental and 'indie rock' approach. The album is notable for containing several tracks that feature prominent use of vocalisation techniques as major instruments; single Young Folks is the most well-known, but single 'Objects Of My Affection' and album tracks 'Up Against The Wall' and 'The Chills' are also examples of this. The album version of the track 'Let's Call It Off' contains a sample of the song 'Ancient Curse', the B-Side to the Young Folks single, at the end. Along with the reissues of the first two Peter Bjorn And John albums with bonus tracks, Writer's Block was rereleased with an extra disc featuring the B-Sides, remixes, single mixes and remixes from the album campaign, along with the videos of the album's three singles and three live tracks from the Roskilde Festival, 2007. Writer's Block was also ranked at #5 album of the year by Almost Cool and #10 by Under the Radar. This album was #44 on Rolling Stone's list of the Top 50 Albums of 2007. The title track is a sixteen-second snippet of 'found sound' from what appears to be a shopping mall or other public area, with the melody of 'Young Folks' playing in the background.

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