If there's one thing the Swedes know how to do besides making cars which look like Kleenex boxes, it is how to make really good pop music. Oh, and death metal. So that's a couple of things they do really well, along with a champion bikini team.

The first time I met the members of The Cardigans I wound up talking heavy metal and hockey, not because I have a special interest in those subjects, but when you're talking with a seven foot tall bass player named Magnus, and he wants to talk about hockey and heavy metal, well the Big Swede with the Heart of Gold calls the shots.

Which means I'm talking about the new Cardigans album, "Long Gone Before Daylight" which was released in NorthAm this week. While their earlier releases were notable for their lounge versions of Black Sabbath songs, fronted by the coy vocals of Nina Persson, this time around the group has decided to make a better Sheryl Crow. On the album, The Cardigans play masters of disguise and make the best damn Sheryl Crow album of the last year.

Not only that, but they've taken over the cast of Alias.

If that's not Sark and Sydney Bristow fighting a secret war in a Swedish rock band, I don't know what JJ Abrams is going to do next season.