Four European pop stars rush from their spaceship "Aquarius" to rescue the desperate victims of a giant octopus.

Sounds like a bizarre scenario -- though no more bizarre than a set full of living, breathing Barbie girls.

The sci-fi knock-off is the premise for Aqua's new black-and-white video, "Cartoon Heroes," the first single off their second album, "Aquarius". The single will be released in early January while the video will be out on Jan. 4 and the album will be out Feb. 29th.

Calling from London, Aqua's frontwoman Lene Nystrom is proud to continue Aqua's tradition of goofy videos.

"We wanted to make a video like the old science fiction films," she said Wednesday. "It's basically about a big giant octopus attacking the whole world, and Earth sends out an emergency signal to us. We're asleep in a ship called Aquarius up in outer space, and (the signal) wakes us up and we go down to the Earth and save the Earth as the superheroes we are."

From the sounds of the first single, Aqua plans to build on the fame they found through catchy lyrics and off-beat videos. But Nystrom quickly points out that the band members have changed and so has their music.

"I think when you have such a big success then your self-esteem grows a lot; you know much better what you're going for," Nystrom says. "We have developed as persons and that makes us also want to develop the music".

The spunky lead singer also says "Aquarius" will buck what she sees as the trend in pop music toward a "minimalistic" sound.

"We used a lot of orchestras and strings on some of the tracks and made it sound a lot like musicals. It's a very big sound. Most of the bands these days in dance and pop music usually make a very minimalistic sound, so we wanted to go the opposite way."

Just when you think the good-humoured group is getting serious on us, however, Nystrom drops in a casual reassurance.

"It's still very poppy and still (has) very cheesy lyrics," she laughs.

Comical videos and purposefully cheesy lyrics might just catapult the group back into the charts.

Since the furor over "Barbie Girl" subsided (toy-maker Mattel sued Aqua's label, MCA Records, for trademark violations), the band members have had time to relax, re-group and write music. Nystrom says she spent most of the down-time with her family, dog and boyfriend, although her absence from the charts didn't save her from prying eyes.

"You have to be careful, because the press is always watching you. Especially since the last year, since we stopped the promotion and didn't give the press anything more - they started to dig."

"I died three times," Nystrom says, referring to rumours that circulated. "Car accident, plane crash, drug overdose. The last half-year I've been dating like 15 men - I've had a really busy summer," she says drily.

Although Aqua's in-between stage saw the members harassed by the press, it gave everyone a chance to re-group, and when they started recording last January, they were happy to be together again.

"We've been having a good time together in the studio and having nice dinners together and having a glass of red wine," Nystrom says. "Basically just having a good time."

The studio sessions produced songs that Nystrom is proud of and excited to sing. Her two favourite tracks are "Aquarius" and "An Apple A Day".

"'Aquarius' is the slowest ballad on the album," she says. "Soren wrote it. It's absolutely wonderful. I love singing it. It's a deep story behind it but I don't think Soren wants that told, " she says.

"'An Apple A Day' is more like the up-tempo cheesy pop songs, very good melody, very good chorus."

Nystrom, Soren and the rest of Aqua plan to kick off a series of promotional appearances early in the new year and are scheduled to hit Canada in the spring.

Then the band will find out if "Aquarius" can claim victory over vicious pop-music competition, the "Barbie Girl" backlash (in a recent poll, it was named the most irritating song overheard on Walkmans) and, yes, even a giant octopus.