release date: Feb. 18, 1994
format: cd
[album rate: 4 / 5] [4,02]
producer: Tore Johansson
label: Stockholm Records - nationality: Sweden
Tracklist: 1. "Sick & Tired" (4 / 5) (live on MTV) - 2. "Black Letter Day" - 3. "In the Afternoon" - 4. "Over the Water" - 5. "After All..." - 6. "Cloudy Sky" - 7. "Our Space" - 8. "Rise & Shine" (5 / 5) - 9. "Celia Inside" - 10. "Sabbath Bloody Sabbath" - 11. "Seems Hard" - 12. "Last Song"
Studio album debut by The Cardigans originally released in Sweden on Trampolene Records - the first in a long series of albums produced by Tore Johansson - is a new introduction to great modern, classic pop music with bonds to baroque pop of the late '60s.
Aside from great original songs like "Sick & Tired", "In the Afternoon", "Over the Water", "After All...", "Cloudy Sky", and the best track "Rise & Shine", it also contains a very original and fine cover version of the Black Sabbath classic "Sabbath Bloody Sabbath".
I may not have entirely loved the album from day one. I remember, listening to it thinking it was quite all right, a bit too innocently naïve, I mean, my favourites at the time was music in the alt. rock genre like Sugar, Bob Mould, Psyched Up Janis, R.E.M. and Brittish rave electronica phenonomen, The Prodigy, so yes, this was somewhat slower and... not really rock or electrified enough BUT I still liked it. A few years later, I realised that loved it. This is one of their absolute best alongside the two following albums. It's also their defining moment when they played lounge pop, by some referred to as 'blue-eyed' pop or twee-pop, but with a certain jazz feel to it. Later on it became too britpop and pop / rock-inspired loosing the band's unique style and sound, imho.
But this is pure gold.
