Side projects are strange creatures. When you really think about it, most people pick up instruments and form bands in the first place because they have something they want to say – some sort of personal thing that they want to get out of themselves and maybe convey to others – and sometimes they're lucky enough to turn a living at it but, often when they get to that point, they suddenly feel confined again. Whether it's because they don't want to be seen as just the creator of that one thing or they resist the idea that they'll be locked into it in perpetuity, many musicians will start side projects to reignite the process again with a different direction in mind. There's nothing wrong with that per se, it's just strange to note that potentially self-defeating psychology that seems to affect individuals in every corner of the musical landscape – from Rancid to Smashing Pumpkins to Broken Social Scene to Alexisonfire to Wilco to Spice Girls and more.
Once in a while, the side project will gain progressively more notoriety (usually after a prolonged period of inactivity from the main band in question) until the side project eclipses the main band's popularity. At that point the musician doing double duty must make a choice: Which is more satisfying, the first band with history on its side or this new undertaking that everyone seems to like and has all the buzz?
That decision may be coming for Cardigans/A Camp singer Nina Persson sooner than anyone thinks.
Cross-wiring Cardigans-esque pop, true-toned show tune clichés and an incredibly dark disposition when you really listen, Colonia, A Camp's long-playing debut, is a marvel of genre bending because it is still a candy pop album in sound but, unlike other groups that have attempted similar confectionery terrorism, the razors in this candy apple are more plentiful and deeply hidden.
It starts unassumingly enough. With delicate, wistful instruments and a melodic figure that bears more than a passing resemblance to Abba (or at least the Mama Mia! soundtrack), Persson calls together all of the figures of Seventies pop royalty and proceeds into a build that does them all justice.
But then there's the barb. Amid that pop utopia – flying just under the radar actually – there's the lyric, “Let's raise our glasses to murderous asses” that, if you catch it, will make you cough and rewind the song to make sure you heard it right.
You did – it's right there – and it sets the modus operandi for the album: each of these dozen songs plays with the most epic pop in the genre's history but sucker punches listeners when they least expect it. That's the hit that keeps them coming back for more and each song has one. As the saccharine pop – complete with bells, birds chirping and angelic choruses – rolls out through songs like “Stronger Than Jesus” (“Love can do you like a shotgun”), “Golden Teeth and Silver Medals" (“Anybody tell you/That there is no resale value/when your romance goes to hell”) and “Here Are Many Wild Animals” (including a cast of cockroaches, scorpions, rodents, bastards, millionaires and “Ooo – they're dropping the bomb”), Nina Persson plays Baba Yaga (study up on your Slavic folklore) to her pop audience and invites them to dine on sweets until they choke. Those that aren't members of that audience will find themselves transfixed by it too; the obviously un-commercial sentiments sunk into a decidedly commercial product are perfectly hypnotic. That act of Persson successfully finding a way to have her cake and eat it too is the best aspect of Colonia and, whether you've read this review and are expecting it or not, it'll still get you.
All of this begs the obvious question of what will come next for Persson. With an album that plays so well to the seduction of the gun as Colonia does, I can't be the only one who hopes The Cardigans take a back seat to A Camp. This album is a surprise because, while it plays to Persson's established strengths, it also offers another dimension to them and tweaks them in a most deliciously hellacious way.
Artist:
A Camp online
A Camp myspace
Album:
Colonia is out now and available here on Amazon .
