Maybe it was something to do with the heavy metal jewellery and leather trousers, but there was something not quite right about The Cardigans the last time they came around this way with Gran Turismo. It certainly yielded a couple of globe conquering singles, went on to sell something in the region of three million copies and propelled the band onto a new level of stardom, but the huge leap from the sunnier, poppier days of Emmerdale and First Band On The Moon seemed to take its toll.

Being a Cardigan didn’t look like it was a lot of fun, a view that gathered weight as the various members headed off to undertake different projects and consider their options – options that looked less and less like including their original band, especially when the initial recording sessions for Long Before Daylight were acrimoniously scrapped.

A Los Angeles beach house reconciliation later, however, and the quintet have re-emerged with by far their strongest work to date. Whereas Gran Turismo was very much a beast of the studio, this fourth album finds them re-grouped and re-inspired as a band, confident in their own abilities. Nina Persson in particular is a new person, the diffident ice queen of yore replaced by a singer of massive depth, range and emotion.

The desire to make an organic, alive album manifests itself throughout and they overdo it slightly on occasion (‘You’re The Storm’ and ‘A Good Horse’ veer a tad close to mainstream US rock), but elsewhere the record is imbued with a genuine sense of purpose. Persson contributes a set of lyrics that muse largely on affairs of the heart, yet always with a twist. For instance, on first play, ‘And Then You Kissed Me’ is a beautifully stark love song, before repeated listens reveal a raw, chilling tale of domestic abuse .

As songwriting partner Peter Svensson weaves delicate guitar lines over subtle percussion, Persson sweetly intones “blue, blue, black and blue… red blood sticks like glue… real love is cruel love”. The song’s refusal to see it as a black and white issue – “it struck me that love is a game, like war no-one’s to blame, it struck me that love is a sport so I pushed you just a little bit more” – may strike a chord with some and infuriate others, but as the singer softly mutters “And then you hit me, and then you kissed me” over again, the effect is striking. ‘Lovefool’ it isn’t.

Nor is Long Gone Before Daylight an attempt to jump on the bandwagon so effectively steered by The Hives, Soundtrack Of Our Lives and The Hellacopters (although the frontmen of all three groups do make an appearance on the album). How the millions who thrilled to ‘Carnival’, ‘Rise And Shine’ and the like will react to it remains to be seen, but you suspect that such a consideration is the furthest thing from The Cardigans’ minds. What is important is that they’ve emerged from their conflicts with a truly great record and one that, as winter melts gently into spring, will itself surely melt even the most frozen of hearts.