In this world of cookie-cutter, post-alternative bands, the Cardigans are fueled by a deep and abiding faith in novelty. The word kitsch has already earned a permanent place in most descriptions of this Swedish band, which is inevitable when the straw that stirs your particular lounge-pop drink is often a flute. The flute is an important part of the Cardigans' musical armory, as are the melodies of Black Sabbath, which they cover with alarming regularity. And in a radical break from Swedish tradition, the Cardigans' name doesn't begin with the letter A.

Yet with First Band on the Moon, their second U.S. album, the Cardigans prove to be more than the sum of their gimmicks. The music remains cotton-candy sweet, but vocalist Nina Persson and guitarist Peter Svensson temper the giddiness with strikingly downbeat songwriting. Persson is a coy, supercute bubblegum vocalist – Betty Boop meets Kirsty MacColl – but Persson's airy lack of affectation actually deepens her dark, romantic sentiments when she chirps cheerily about her status as a willingly deceived doormat in the hitworthy single "Lovefool" or commands "Tell me I'm good/I know I'm bad," in "Heartbreaker."

The Cardigans' busy orchestrations and quirky adornments drip with the fizz of '60s pop and cocktail jazz, but the group doesn't hide behind its cleverness. First Band on the Moon, with its insinuating melodies and carefully crafted, bittersweet fun, is truly sophisticated and irony-free, except for the Cardigans' take on that most iconographic of Sabbath anthems, "Iron Man." It's a thrill to hear Persson purr, "Heavy boots of lead/Fills his victims full of dread," over a Jim Hall-style jazz-guitar figure. But in the end it can never be anything but a joke. Especially if it gets released as a single. (RS 747)

JASON COHEN