The Cardigans got their first 'big break' with the release of Love Fool, the track as everyone knows was featured on the Romeo & Juliet soundtrack, what most people don't know is The Cardigans released three prior albums and many would argue that the earlier albums were a lot better than the stunning Gran Turismo. Gran Turismo is an album full of blistering edgy pop tunes, topped off with Nina Perssons icy cool vocals that have a very unique & memorable tone. All the members of The Cardigans have worked on other projects with different bands since Gran Turismo, the most popular being Nina Perssons project A Camp. Now the Cardigans are back together, and bring us Long Gone Before Daylight, The direction of the band has somewhat changed, they have slowed the pace down a few gears and the whole album chugs along in the slow lane all the way through, they have removed all the electro sounds used on their last album and replaced them with pianos & acoustic guitars, so yeah it is pretty similar to A Camp.
Long Gone Before Daylight has a definite live vibe, you can tell that the band have spent a long time in the studio trying to create an album full of tracks with beautiful but not over the top production. The Cardigans asked some Swedish friends to help them record this album like Howlin' Pelle Almquist, the frontman of the Hives, Ebbot Lundberg of Soundtrack Of Our Lives, and Nicke Royale, of The Hellacopters. Seeing as all these people are members of rock bands, they have contributed to a very light, heart drenched album. Many tracks like the first single to be taken from the album "For What It's Worth" & 'Then You Kissed Me' resemble an essence of Stevie Nicks. The most up-tempo moments on the album are on "Good Horse" but lyrically this is one of the lower quality songs.
Nina Perssons is what keeps you listening to this album; her vocals are just as beautiful and individual as they have ever been, it would have been nice to be able to hear some of the old Cardigans sounds but the band has made a mature easy listening album.
Most tracks are very gentle and beautiful yet they seem to rely too much on the vocals and the lyrics, Long Gone Before Daylight leaves you wondering is this enough?
