STATEMACHINE SHORT AND EXPLOSIVE ALBUM SSC, PLAYGROUND RELEASE: JUNE 13, 2003 REVIEW: JUNE 8, 2003

It has been a while since I gave up on a new Statemachine album, to be honest. Many with me must have doubted that the Swedish trio would ever pull themselves together long enough to finally record the readily announced "Short and Explosive" disc. It is the fruit of over five years' labour that has now reached us and it is a hard task to try and ignore the fact that it has taken the band so long to complete it.
Disregarding the flawless technical aspects of the album, "Short and Explosive" both rewards and disappoints me. The singles "Less than Perfect" and the new "I'm Love" are of course on here, as is, for some reason, the fossile "Battered and Bruised". There is a pronounced thought behind the overall sound of the album as it all follows a gloomy, dark laden electropop path, mixed with quite a lot of guitars, adding depth and basic dynamics. Frontman Mårten Kellerman delivers the vocals with his trademark feeling of angst and agony and while it sounds great, in the end you find yourself muttering something about why he doesn't use what he's got better. Even so, "Stranger Still" is the kind of track that makes Statemachine vital to the scene, "Paint It Black" a fantastic cover and "When to Fold" an insightful piece of poetry. While none of the tracks provided me with my trademark grin the first time around, many of them did a few hours later. I just have a feeling, and I hope I am wrong, that "Short and Explosive" may be too intelligent and too much of a story from someone's struggle with a broken mind to please the wide layers of electro fans. Seven minus.

NIKLAS FORSBERG