UNLIKE a favourite old jumper, Malmo's Cardigans have always been full of surprises.

Pristine songwriter and guitarist Peter Svensson and bass player Magnus Sveningsson spent time in hairy Swedish heavy metal bands; they named their 1994 debut after a Yorkshire Television soap, Emmerdale; and after 1998's erratic Gran Turismo album took them to new commercial heights, they lay dormant while singer and lyricist Nina Persson concentrated her A Camp solo project. That album, with its poised, Nico-style twist on dusty American country rock, was the most unexpected off-shoot of 2001, and now the Cardigans have gone in yet another direction. Synthetic, clean electro-pop has made way for smoky, emotionally dark, yearning guitar songs that put the morbid and mordant into MOR on their first record in five years. Persson's tumbleweed melancholia and unpredictable mood swings continue here in a slew of introspective, bittersweet reflections on love, her lovelorn voice newly reminiscent of Aimee Mann in its vulnerability and detached grace. The early quirkiness and effervescence may have vanished, the fluffy sweetness of Lovefool may never return, and Persson's peroxide has matured to brunette, but when the chill of her voice meets the warmth of Svensson's melodies, the Cardigans have a mournful majesty. Not unlike Abba after their marriages failed.

Updated: 16:46 Wednesday, March 26, 2003