The latest Cardigans album, Super Extra Gravity, may not even be out in Canada yet; as with a lot of albums I heard last year, it’s stuck in a sort of import limbo. You can get a copy, but no one really knows if there’s a domestic release. You’ll probably pay a low enough price for the album that you’ll wonder if it’s from Europe, but still pricey enough that you’ll feel burned if it’s not. Anyways, Super Extra Gravity is an album I have yet to purchase, but have had the opportunity to listen to—just not very often, and not very closely. Until last month, anyways, too late to make the end-of-year review.

On the 2005 review, Super Extra Gravity would probably merit an honourable mention. After the group’s implosion after Gran Turismo, the Cardigans have been pursuing less mainstream audiences—and they’re doing it by playing more mainstream music. No longer in fashion, the Cardigans had settled down nicely into middle adulthood with Long Gone Before Daylight, a subdued effort that went a long way towards erasing the group’s squeaky clean pop image in ways Gran Turismo never could. It was a genuine sounding album, full of warmth and subtle pleasures, and the second half of the album comes together better than any Cardigans effort before or since. Unfortunately, that includes Super Extra Gravity, which never quite coalesces into a unified whole the way Daylight did. To make matters worse, Super Extra Gravity ends with a track called “And Then You Kissed Me II,” which is—you guessed it—distantly related to “And Then You Kissed Me” off of Daylight. The two sound similar enough in melody that you’ll immediately hear the connection, but the new song is inferior. Same goes for “Don’t Blame Your Daughter (Diamonds),” which may not have nicked the hook from “Feathers and Down” consciously, but is much worse off for doing so.

But when the Cardigans aren’t busy repeating history, they actually do a great job. Super Extra Gravity takes a bit longer to like than Daylight, almost entirely due to the scattershot selection of songs this time around. But a lot of them are keepers: “Godspell,” “I Need Some Fine Wine and You Need To Be Nicer,” “In The Round” and “Good Morning Joan” have little in common except their ability to burrow into your head. Super Extra Gravity managed a bizarre feat few other albums did last year: the songs were catchy enough that I could hum their melodies mindlessly, but rarely did I know which song I was humming, or even who played the song. Have the Cardigans tapped some secret underground well of universal pop songwriting, or are they still too generic for their own good? Whatever the answer, Super Extra Gravity has some superb songs on it, and that’s certainly enough to make it a good album, if maybe not a great one.