There’s been a flurry of hype around Miike Snow and their eponymously titled debut album - as the band themselves admit it’s something they never expected when they got together to “mess around”. But they’ve got form - of the trio behind the sounds, singer Andrew Wyatt has just finished Daniel Merriweather’s new album and Swedish pair Christian Karlsson and Pontus Winnberg are also known as Bloodshy & Avant, the writing and production team behind Britney’s Toxic as well as a stack of other pop successes including Madonna, Sugababes and Kylie Minogue. So is their hybrid debut the sound of a hundred stars spun in a blender? Er, no…
As a whole, this ensemble of tracks oozes melancholy and cool, with Andrew Wyatt’s hushed vocals sauntering through each song almost apologetically. The album opens with the reggae-infused Animal, all sunshine beats, calypso calling yet somehow the sound of now. Their first single Burial is a dreamy, atmospheric number, wistful with splashes of the 70s splattered over a sashaying piano and backbeat. Meanwhile, Song For No One is a pop tour de force, starting off like a 70s kids TV show theme tune and then segueing neatly into smoothly crunchy electro. Sans Soleil and Cult Logic, meanwhile, sees Miike Snow venturing onto Erasure-trodden paths with searching vocals, synths leading and sounding like something lifted directly from The Circus. Are you listening Andy Bell?
New single Black & Blue layers Miike Snow’s strengths of mixing genres with its snaking synths and singalong chorus, while A Horse Is Not A Home dresses head-to-toe in glitter in a glam rock-electro meeting of minds. The album closes on the gorgeously downbeat Faker, sounding like magic dust lifted from Simon & Garfunkel’s groin. Bizarrely on such a mash-up of styles and tempos, there are plenty of songs here that you’ll come away humming after the first listen - not so bizarrely, there are also plenty that demand a repeat listening. If you had to pin it down to a sound it would be indie pop but that’s to undersell it - this album contains serious songwriting and a collection of seriously affecting tunes. For our money, it’s in the running for album of the year.
Miike Snow’s album Miike Snow is out now.
(Clare Lydon)
