Super Extra Gravity - Dark Publications

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Similar Items:

•	Long Gone Before Daylight
•	Gran Turismo
•	Life
•	First Band on the Moon
•	Emmerdale

Editorial Reviews:

Amazon.com
Sweden's the Cardigans broke big in America in 1996 with First Band on the Moon and the hit "Lovefool." A slippery, slick pop tune, the song was also unmistakably twisted, as vocalist Nina Persson described a desperate, submissive affair in honey-flecked tones and happy-day hooks. The dichotomy was a neat little joke that went right over a lot of merrily nodding heads. A decade later on Super Extra Gravity, the band still likes to play with expectations of what a pop band is supposed to be. But while the melodic camouflage for Persson's dour lyrics once made for an effective disguise, Gravity struggles to maintain the illusion. The music here is self-consciously ambitious, constantly reshuffling and losing its momentum, leaving Persson in charge of connecting each song's too-disparate parts. It's a task for which her Chrissie-Hynde-meets-Harriet-Wheeler voice is not well-suited. "Drip Drop Teardrop," for instance, needs either a belter to accentuate the song's jagged edges or a chanteuse to smooth it out, and Persson can do neither. There are pieces of songs that still rope us in. The chorus of "Little Black Cloud," for instance, generates an exuberant energy that matches Persson's tale of a girl spinning and dancing her way toward a vaguely sinister conclusion, while "In the Round" mines an appealingly sparse and slow guitar drawl. However, the pieces don't add up to a convincing whole, and while this album is never quite boring, Gravity tries a bit too hard and ends up an interesting misfire. --Matthew Cooke

Album Description
International pressing. 'Super Extra Gravity' was produced by Tore Johansson who worked with Franz Ferdinand & previously with The Cardigans on 'Gran Turismo'. Aside from the single 'I Need Some Fine Wine...', other highlights include the sparse album opener 'Losing A Friend', 'In The Round', 'Good Morning Joan' featuring a wall of guitars and the sad and beautiful 'Don't Blame Your Daughter (Diamonds)'. Every listen of the new record reveals another gem - The Cardigans have succeeded in their aim: to make a beautifully deranged album that never ceases to surprise the listener. 11 tracks in all. Universal. 2005.

Customer Reviews: Read 17 more reviews...

4 out of 5 stars

The Cardigans always give you something different December 5, 2005
45 out of 45 found this review helpful

I've been a Cardigans fan since their 1995 album "Life". Every album this band puts out is quite different from the others; and Super Extra Gravity continues this tradition. It doesn't sound like any other Cardigans record.
If you're already a Cardigans fan I can explain Super Extra Gravity like this...
It rocks harder than Long Gone Before Daylight.
It doesn't rock as hard as Gran Turismo.
It's nowhere near as poppy as Emmerdale, Life, or First Band on the Moon.
If what I just wrote makes no sense to you...
If you're a new Cardigans fan I would recommend you buy their 1995 album "Life" first. If you like it - move onto "First Band on the Moon" and proceed chronologically; going back for 1994's "Emmerdale" last. In my opinion getting the Cardigans CDs in this order lets you truly experience the growth of this band. Very cool.
The Cardigans continue to develop as a band; and with each new record they take their fans in a completely new direction. That's one of their best qualities; and why Super Extra Gravity is an excellent record. In my opinion it's not their best; but it is very good.
Favorite tracks are "I Need Some Fine Wine And You, You Need To Be Nicer" and "Godspell".

5 out of 5 stars

Super Extra Impressive! November 1, 2005
13 out of 16 found this review helpful

Exit Per Sunding and re-enter Tore Johansson. Super Extra Gravity marks the return of The Cardigans in a massive way after somewhat of a let down with their last release Long Gone Before Daylight which was unbearably (and shockingly) country-tainted. Although not as heavily introspective and highly confessional, Super Extra Gravity more than makes up for the lack in lyrical-genius and maturity with the hard, polished and stylish sound that propelled them onto the world stage in 1996.

Super Extra Gravity is a neat package of 11 tracks (and 3 bonus tracks), bound by a very interesting album cover: singer Nina Persson looks particularly beautiful whilst pretending to be `dead' on the cover. Visual aesthetics aside, the album is extremely hard to classify: "Losing A Friend" sounds like a Beatles song that was never released, "Give Me Your Eyes" might as well have been sung by Debbie Harry and "Little Black Cloud" sounds almost identical to Smashing Pumpkin's "Tonight Tonight".

The Cardigans have never been an eager-to-please band. They have always been highly experimental, yet simple, and undeniably chimerical, switching from indie to country to ambient pop from album to album, and even within a single album, as they do so superbly here. The band retains some of the sleek electronica used on Gran Turismo but it is the Emmerdale-esque mastery in the quiet guitar solos by Peter Svensson that drive the band's unique sound. Some acutely experimental tracks are "Slow", with its low tone chords and Persson's rough yet sweet soulful voice and "The Round", a track stripped bare down to its minimal bass lines. There are also highly glossy single-worthy tracks in here such as "Holy Love" and "Godspell".

After this 6th studio album, one can only learn to never expect anything from the Swedish quintet because with every album, they have always managed to deliver nothing less than original. Super Extra Gravity goes from evoking raw emotion at certain points to creating addictive highs the next. And although it might not have the heavy electronica a la Ladytron or Goldfrapp nor the heavy guitars of Interpol, this album is mixes all these elements (and more) and comes up with a winning mix. This might just be The Cardie's best release to date.

5 out of 5 stars

This is the album I've been waiting for. November 7, 2005
13 out of 14 found this review helpful

I've never written a review before for a cd, but felt compelled as the latest work from The Cardigans struck me as something great and I feared they would be spoken of badly or misinterpreted by someone, hindering another from experiencing this revolution in music. So in an attempt to rescue the underdog-let me bring this album into the light and assure you that you're making a wise choice in considering this cd.

I've been a Cardigans fan for nearly as long as they've been around, which is close to a decade. Their music seems to move with the general feeling of the musically inclined at that point and time, even so far as initiating the next wave of emotion. When I was younger and needed a different sound from everything so commercial that was being spoon fed to us, I was given Life, their second album. As I grew up, it seemed their music transitioned as well rather than recreating itself and becoming diluted. Life was such an innocently tainted album with a hush of warm anger that you would be long basking in it's light before you felt sly schemes already manifesting themselves in your mind and disrupted your organized view of love and friendship. For the Cardigans, their inspiration was found in hard rock, death metal groups and a desire to go against everything their small lives had led them to up until their converging, so I wasn't as surprised when they began inching toward the darkness with covers of black sabbath and anthems against love.

It had been years since Gran Turismo when I learned they'd released Long Gone Before Daylight. I was skeptical because I didn't find myself relating to them as much when Gran Turismo came out, and sensed that maybe as an artist, they we're more a tool for commercialism rather than the love of music. But trusting them, I bought the cd and soon it took the reigns of my emotions that I'd unsuccessfully controlled, and steered me into a direction that I almost wasn't sure that I was allowed to feel. Giving her failed love a physical manifestation (And then he kissed me) by solemly singing of how this emotion beat her and left her bruised evokes an understanding of how relationships, in their endings, are powerful enough to seemingly affect you in that manner. It was perfectly calm yet deeply upset, the antithesis of what's been playing and produced, and exactly what I needed to hear . It felt like emotions could be expressed by just listening to that album and that I understood what was being expressed.

So, much to my surprise, Super Extra Gravity was right around the corner to being released, because apparently LGBD was not released in the US until a year after it had come out in Europe.
Putting that cd in drew so much anticipation from me and I knew that their opening chords were the start of something great. The first track is a collection of chaos, timing, depth and intelligence that sets you up for the rest of the album. Godspeed, the next track, is one of my favorite songs. I've read that it's about the town they are from, which is engrossed in the christian religion. The song- a declaration of rebellion and opened eyes to their dogma. The following songs are amazing without trying to be and that's what I love about them. Each one breaking the mold of traditional song structure, allowing an obsessive love over a song to develop from something as obscure as the last chords strummed not once throughout the entire song, but used to seal the end of a track. They're not wrapped in the production so much that it begins to lose it's original spark, yet not so fearful of being understood that they short change themselves.

This album is angrier and louder than LGBD, and in a lot of ways, resembles the same process we take in getting over a relationship in that LGBD was a quiet, hurtful rage that spurned Super Extra Gravity into orbit as a way of healing. Super Extra Gravity was the perfect transition from LGBD and my faith in The Cardigans as true musicians has deepened even further. I would love one day to hear them go back to their breezy-afternoon-cocktail-lounge roots as a testimony that they're who they've always been, only showing the human quality of another emotion.

3 out of 5 stars

Half A Persson? November 14, 2005
11 out of 17 found this review helpful

When it comes to lost classics of the decade, The Cardigans' stellar Long Gone Before Daylight is a delicate touchstone. Unleashed in 2003 and choked by chart rubbish such as 50 Cent and R Kellly before its elegance could be admired, Long Gone Before Daylight combined gorgeous pop melodies with a slight country edge that was a far cry from the bubblegum pop of the Swedish bands' Romeo And Juliet-assisted hit, Lovefool or their awesome 1998 electro single My Favourite Game.
Partway between the country feel of Long Gone Before Daylight and the astute pop which dominated the Swedish group's earlier output, when Super Extra Gravity works the songs sound so perfect they could have been crafted by Odin himself.
The country slide guitar of Drip Drop Teardrop finds vocalist Nina Persson offering the unlikely line `I'm gonna sing until you hate this song' with her regular delectable delivery before purring `I'm hot baby - don't burn your fingers' on the casual Righteous Brothers sounds of Overload. While the guitars on sexy current single I Need Some Fine Wine And You, You Need To Be Nicer are a little thin, the backing vocals and the playful commands of Nina (`bad dog!') recover some lost ground.
Sadly the second half of Super Extra Gravity doesn't have enough exciting hooks or heart-breaking moments to meet expectations. There's an overbearing feeling that The Cardigans have failed to stretch themselves this time around, but since Long Gone Before Daylight was so tragically overlooked it's no wonder the band feel slightly lethargic. The fact there's even a sequel to a former song to round out the album, And Then You Kissed Me II, featuring the same `True love is cruel love' refrain as the original, hints at the water treading going on here (see similarly stalled sequel tunes from Metallica, The Vines and The Charlie Daniels Band), although Little Black Cloud is a fine song akin to Dancing Queen being rewritten for depressed and alienated Manic Street Preachers fans.
Super Extra Gravity may draw you in, but in comparison to their former glories it doesn't feel fully realised. Half a Persson, then.

4 out of 5 stars

incredible album November 3, 2005
6 out of 6 found this review helpful

super extra gravity is the cardigans best work since gran turismo, which is just ridiculous. they've dropped the good (but pretty annoying) fluffy pop sound and have recorded an almost perfect rock and roll album. rock and roll albums are hard to come by nowadays. rock, yes, rock and roll, no. check out little black cloud, in the round, good morning joan (for a true schooling in song structure/writing), godspell, hell every song is just so good. i see people complaining about the obscenity of some of these songs. that's ridiculous. i'm sorry they offend your narrow view of what you find acceptable, but that's what good music does. offends. i have given this 4 stars because 5 stars are saved for truely perfect albums, but if there was a 4 3/4 stars, i would give it that.

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