I looked up, my lingonberry-stained teeth dribbling blue drabs onto the tablecloth, entranced by the sounds belching from my CD boombox with the one broken speaker. The music was hypnotic, a tribute to the fragile crooning voice of Nina Persson. I wiped the berries away, stuffed the handkerchief into my pocket-protector, and set to listening carefully to The Cardigans' First Band On The Moon.

What I found was a recording as quirky as a Saab but with the beauty of a stewardess. Restrained and minimal, it is doing very much with very little, as Pippi Longstocking might say. First Band On The Moon is well-balanced and subtle, rising above the VH1 crowd with tracks like "Step On Me" and "Iron Man" (a cover of the infamous Black Sabbath track). Rather than being cloyingly sweet, which is a clear risk, it manages to introduce just enough of the dark side to keep it interesting. Hey! There goes my stomach a-rumblin' again to remind -- it satisfies.

-James P. Wisdom