Originally posted on Copper Press, 15 Nov 2006:

Hard to believe, but The Cardigans are in their fourteenth year. It seems like only yesterday they were courting mainstream audiences with their deceptively cynical bubblegum pop—but that selective recollection means forgetting the multiple sonic reinventions, the long and unexplained silences, the solo projects and even the threat of breakup that have taken place since the First Band on the Moon (or for most listeners, the Romeo + Juliet soundtrack) era a decade ago. Those events, so easily overlooked, account for the band’s middling rate of output, an average of just one album every two years.

Super Extra Gravity is the Swedish quintet’s sixth studio album and follow-up to the Long Gone Before Daylight (released in Europe in 2003 and, as with Super Extra Gravity, one year later in the US), which is considered to be the inevitable maturation and mellowing of the band’s sound. Nina Persson’s vocals still have that same mix of naïve innocence and seductive experience that wooed listeners as far back as Emmerdale (1994), but the band has taken the 1970s guitar rock of their previous disc and condensed it, doused it with vinegar and sharpened its teeth. Super Extra Gravity comes across as a dark, terse and edgy album with a uniform sound that makes for satisfying cohesion rather than bland monotony. To put it another way, this album is The Cardigans’ equivalent to Dolittle, making it seem particularly apt that both Persson and guitarist Peter Svensson would later cite The Pixies as inspiration during the songwriting.

“I Need Some Fine Wine and You, You Need to Be Nicer,” the album’s first single, is the ideal airplay ambassador because it’s a good representation of the ten other songs in its company. The mocking “gotcha” that follows the comma is perfectly, almost poetically complemented by a snarling riff and a propulsive tune that are as catchy as anything that The Cardigans have put out to date. This particular track showcases the band at its best, though other tracks have an equally complementary relationship between lyrics and music—a harmony that the characters in these tales of doomed and dying romances would find enviable or even impossible. The mic’ed-up thwack of the snare on the opener “Losing a Friend” drives home Persson’s desperate assertion that, “You’ve got it all wrong/ It’s not about revenge/ You’re losing a friend.” And the dreamy waltz time on “Overload” accentuates her repeated references to dancing.

But this is a difficult balance to maintain. Persson has never been the most gifted lyric writer in the pop world, and when they lack the brevity that characterizes so much of Super Extra Gravity, Svensson’s compositions can sound like the work of a talented songwriter on autopilot. The rare moments in which these two elements aren’t working symbiotically are when Super Extra Gravity falls flat. While they’re pure gold compared to the non-singles on most pop albums, “Good Morning Joan” and the droning (the title alone should be some indication) “Drip Drop Teardrop” lack the distinctive hooks of “I Need Some Fine Wine” and “In the Round.” Even “Overload” begins to lose momentum after the first chorus. None of these songs is so poor as to warrant a press of the skip button, but they offer no real reason to revisit them. They’re more like high quality filler: tolerable but conspicuously dull and uninspired.

Which isn’t to say that the moments of inspiration consistently pay off, either. If you were to labor under the assumption that you aren’t a real artist until you’ve tackled Serious Issues in three verses and a chorus, then “Godspell” is Persson’s attempt to introduce some of the extra gravity of the album’s title. The song is her two cents on religion, and it’s two cents ill spent. Yes, organized religion has many centuries of blood on its hands. Yes, some of the most ardent followers of any given faith can be hypocrites and con artists. But a sneering blanket dismissal of religion as a “great big swindle” is as pretentious and fumbling as Madonna’s attempts to weigh in on matters political and theological. This is one instance where it would be better for Persson to stick with, “Love me, love me, say that you love me.” Lovesick self-pity suits her better; it’s her natural territory.

Long Gone Before Daylight had some high points and proved that - at the very least - The Cardigans weren’t down for the count. Its minor flaws considered, Super Extra Gravity fully restores the band to the peak they enjoyed during their First Band on the Moon days. The crucial difference between now and then is that there used to be an almost ironic disunity between the cynicism of Persson’s lyrics and the sunshine of Svensson’s music. Today they both proudly wear their cynicism on their sleeves.