Nina Persson is back with her solo slant on Swedish indie-pop, playing Amsterdam this week (Bitterzoet, Wed 26 Feb). Her new album Animal Heart was released earlier this month and delivers some catchy pop tunes, a few more laid back tracks, and one that is definitely not heavy metal. 

Best known as the lead singer of The Cardigans with her memorable lyrics and perhaps even more memorable voice, I for one am happy to hear her lucid tones once more, with its vibrato ripples and weathered edges. Not that Persson has been twiddling her thumbs for the 9 years since the last album from The Cardigans, she also had two albums with A Camp (some might consider this as a solo venture in a sense), along with a few other musical endeavours here and there.

Now comes this new album, which was released on 10 February on Lojinx. It is her debut under her own name and reveals a more mature Swedish songstress, reflecting on her life and experiences, moving forward without getting caught in the past whilst crafting pop tunes around those perennial topics of relationships and alienation.

Catchy pop tunes

We are treated to the most danceable tracks at the very start of the album (‘Animal Heart’, this also being the first single) and again midway through (‘Food for the Beast’), with acoustic pop filling in-between. ‘Catch me Crying’ is also a bit disco, with a Persson-esque chorus – these pop up throughout, she still knows how to pen a catchy chorus.  One of my favourite tracks on the album (as I’m more country gal than disco diva) is ‘The Grand Destruction Game’, with its Americana twang, more akin to her A Camp sounds.

And then we come to the album-closer, ‘This is a Heavy Metal Song’, which as you might have guessed is as far removed from a heavy metal song as you might expect. What it is, is Persson at the piano, pouring out her heart, stripped down and solo, just her and the ivories. This final ballad is an equisite end to the album.

Nina Persson plays at Bitterzoet this week. Tickets available here.