(East/West Europe)
If you have never heard, or heard of, this perplexing Swedish waif, Dynamite is the record that makes doing so mandatory. Her third record is - finally - a perfect vehicle for her haunting voice.
Freed of the sometimes cluttered arrangements that shackled Memories of a Colour and And She Closed Her Eyes, Stina focuses all the new songs on her own electric guitar and vocals.
"Unique" would be understating Stina's voice: the high, child-like pitch arrives in different waves - breathy, dreamy and undulating. Comparisons to the Cranes' Allison Shaw are useful but not definitive, as would be weird concepts such as Tanya Donnelly or Juliana Hatfield's vocal chords on death row (the place of retribution, not the record label).
In any event, once heard, never forgotten - and that was true even with those unfortunate keyboard and clarinet flourishes on the first two albums. But Dynamite is impeccably tasteful in this department, though the result also permits her lyrical bleakness to permeate the atmosphere more completely.
"A thing you said once/made me wonder/What can go away as fast as love/First the light/and then the thunder/I've been up all night and I got it now...Dynamite...All day I/did things slowly/Walked in circles around your home/I had something to add/ to the things you showed me/I've got it here underneath my coat... Dynamite."
The rough electric guitar strumming, complemented with some bass and occasional drums provide a foil to the naked rage while bolstering the melancholic passages more effectively than a lonely acoustic guitar could.
A record of bitter though controlled songs that will have your spine tingling more quickly even than the Arctic breeze that must have buffeted Stina as she wrote and recorded it.
For a taste of Stina's voice, a track from her second album, "Little Stars," is included on the soundtrack to Romeo And Juliet, alongside two other excellent Swedish bands, the Cardigans and the Wannadies.
