August 12, 2009

Album review: Miike Snow - 'Miike Snow'

Pop producers step out from behind the stars, but fail to dazzle

6 / 10 Life is full of surprises, today’s being the fact that the best out-and-out pop single of the decade – Britney’s ‘Toxic’ – was co-written and produced by two of the chaps from Miike Snow, a trio of earnest Swedes with designs on being the next Coldplay (or at least the next A-Ha).

Miike Snow’s debut is a curious affair: clad in icy, inscrutable packaging à la Sigur Rós with american singer Andrew Wyatt carefully enunciating every overwrought word, it’s also jam-packed with the kind of dazzling pop tricks you might expect from three chaps whose day job is churning out radio hits for the likes of Kylie and Jordin Sparks.

They’re certainly aware that today’s casual listeners have the attention spans of ADD-afflicted goldfish: ‘Burial’ starts off like Sufjan Stevens and bites the verse from Prince’s ‘Little Red Corvette’ before evolving into something by operatic indie-rockers Mew if they were produced by Deadmau5. You almost don’t notice that they’re gleefully singing “Don’t forget to cry at your own burial”. Creepy. The surging emo-electropop of ‘Cult Logic’ is another tap-in, while ‘Animal’ is an impressive piece of sleight of hand, sounding a bit like The Police while remaining bearable.

Most ‘proper’ bands would hack off their own genitals to get a sniff of the hooks Miike Snow piss away. Then again, for all the deft artistry on display here, it’s a bit bloodless. And it would be impossible to truly love any band who’ve got a song called ‘A Horse Is Not A Home’ that sounds like Mika fronting Enter Shikari.

Ultimately, Miike Snow’s talents are probably best enjoyed when they’re ghostwriting for someone else. We’ve heard Klaxons could do with a hand…

Sam Richards

[i]What do you think of the album? Let us know by posting a coment below.[/a]

Rate this album

Average rating

9.8

NEW! For the latest music videos and backstage interviews, check out our brand new sister site, NME Video.