The Cardigans - First Band on the Moon

By 1996 the Cardigans had already charmed Europe with a sound built on jazz chords, lounge-pop arrangements and Nina Persson's cool, unhurried voice. First Band on the Moon was the record that took them worldwide, thanks largely to one song: "Lovefool," a perfect slice of Swedish pop that landed on the Romeo + Juliet soundtrack and became one of the defining singles of the decade.

Recorded with longtime producer Tore Johansson at Tambourine Studios in Malmö, the album is far stranger and darker than its hit suggests. "Your New Cuckoo" and "Been It" set bittersweet, sometimes barbed lyrics against sunny melodies, "Step On Me" and "Heartbreaker" lean into melancholy, and the band's cover of Black Sabbath's "Iron Man" turns the metal landmark into a breezy, sly lounge number, a running joke that became one of their signatures.

It remains the purest distillation of the Cardigans' early sound, the point where their retro-pop playfulness and the sharper edges of their later records meet.

This 2019 remastered reissue presents the eleven-track album on 180-gram vinyl in a gatefold jacket.