Colonia

Colonia starts quite wonderfully. Eight years after her first sidestep outing as A Camp, Cardigans frontwoman Nina Persson resumes with the swirling and swooning ‘The Crowning’. Right down to the theatrical double-chorus finale, the fantastical tale of a Henry VIII type character is pure pop brilliance in a – yes we dare say it – very Carpenters vein. Yet there’s already a nagging suspicion that unlike her comparatively sparse and experimental self-titled debut under the moniker, Persson is playing it awfully straight. Where A Camp lusciously meandered to become one of the decade’s hidden gems, Colonia is polished up to track by track strip the Swede of her reborn charm and intrigue.

While husband Nathan Larsson and former Atomic Swing frontman Niclas Frisk are back (now each credited as a third of the band) and joined again by Guided By Voices drummer Kevin March – Joan Wasser, James Iha and Nikolai Dunger also guest incidentally – one name is glaringly missing. Despite, according to the liner notes, turning up to provide slide guitar on album closer ‘The Weed Got Here First’, Sparklehorse leader Mark Linkous played a whole lot more last time out when he also co-produced. Indeed recorded around the same time as Sparklehorse’s majestic It’s A Wonderful Life, A Camp acted as the perfect strangely-affecting, Americana-drenched companion piece.

It only now becomes apparent just how much life Linkous breathed into those recordings which had originally been produced unsatisfactorily by Frisk. Colonia is devastating weak and lifeless in comparison. Only the thoroughly charming ‘Love Has Left The Room’ and George Martin would be proud ‘I Signed The Line’ live up the album’s opening. Elsewhere ‘Bear On A Beach’ is staggeringly vapid, the Nikolai Dunger-dueted ‘Golden Teeth and Silver Medals’ irksome and ‘My America’ (to the chorus of “Hey rock star, you’re My America”) just plain cheesy. Others sound like cast-off’s from The Cardigans more country-tinged recent work but the overall affect is of a deeply underwhelming choice of safety first.

The hand drawn image of Persson with uncharacteristic dark hair on the sleeve eight years ago spelled something different, something more daring and delivered a lot more. The golden-locked head on the front of Colonia suggests a return to conformity which has regrettably, and to a huge pity, been delivered upon just as comprehensively.