MR JONES MACHINE NEW WAVE ALBUM PROGRESS PRODUCTIONS RELEASE: JANUARY 26, 2004 REVIEW: JANUARY 22, 2004

Broken into its retro saturated components, Mr Jones Machine's debut album "New Wave" should appeal as much to me as Kramer's antics in the now DVD-treated, genius series "Seinfeld" or the basic beauty of the female form, but when put together the most important ingredient is missing. The songs! I'm absolutely positive that this album will be praised on most sites due to its heavy 1981 John Foxx/Human League vibe, but it is my firm conviction that the band has wrestled too much with the sound to find time to write the songs they are capable of.
I may be a tad too young to fully appreciate the detuned synths or the intentionally sparse arrangements; my synthpop preferences draw more on the melancholic or fleshy melodic outputs, but this is still well preserved synthpop with top notch vocals (Jarmo Ollila!) and songs catchy enough to surpass mediocrity. "Jaguar" opens the album right there and then Mr Jones Machine tone down the overly obvious retro elements and excel with buzzing dance electropop.

NIKLAS FORSBERG