Yahoo! Music Album Review

Released on 02/02/09
Label: Reveal Records

If there is one indisputable truth, it's that Nina Persson doesn't make enough records. Her vocal presence renders any song mysterious and beguiling, straddling as it does the lines dividing sweet and nut-job, love and obsession. But with her proper band, The Cardigans, on an apparently permanent hiatus, she rarely gets to demonstrate her special talent. Which makes a new album from her other band, equally reclusive side-project A Camp, a double treat. Not only is a follow-up to 2001's stripped bare, self-titled debut long overdue, it's also now the main attraction rather than the added bonus that its predecessor was; a fact that's key to everything about it.

A Camp's first album was a quiet, thoughtful retreat for Persson. Written and recorded with fellow Swedish indie star Niclas Frisk at the height of The Cardigans' pop success, then re-recorded with Sparklehorse's Mark Linkous between tours, it was an escape from the day job's pop world. A conscious attempt to shake off commercial concerns and make fragile, honest music. While "Colonia" still holds the same values dear, being Persson's main focus, it's less about being wilfully uncommercial and more about having an outlet. The result truly is the best of both her worlds.

With her husband, soundtrack composer Nathan Larson, joining the line-up, and Persson's sweetly dysfunctional melodies hummable again, the quietly tender likes of "Bear On The Beach" and "It's Not Easy Being Human" benefit from being both epically atmospheric and instantly memorable. The country tinged break-up of "Love Has Left The Room" and deceptively cute screw-you "I Signed The Line" - which has Persson smiling "I've got injunctions so cease and desist" - manage to be suitably off kilter while sounding like music they want the whole world to hear.

There are even obvious singles. "Here Are Many Wild Animals" slinks to sinister rock'n'roll before opening up into road movie anthem. "My America" is the naïve little sister to David Bowie's "Young Americans" and "Stronger Than Jesus" is a beautifully cynical take on the power of love, complete with twisted metaphors and swelling gospel for the chorus.

A proper, fully formed record rather than a side-project doodle, "Colonia" is where artistic integrity meets pop conviction in a curious, deranged yet compelling sing-along. But isn't a replacement for a new Cardigans album. Nor should it be. A Camp has a quirkily endearing personality all its own, one which the bigger budget sound, the strings, the horns and the pop sensibility of "Colonia" accentuate brilliantly.

    by Dan Gennoe