Whatever it is that the Swedes add to their water, we want it. From the Cardigans to Ace of Base, and from ABBA to Lykke Li, these guys have been consistently and constantly churning out tunes guaranteed to make you bop and sway.

And they’ve managed to wear out our dance shoes again.

Miike Snow_4

Famed Swedish producers Christian Karlsson and Pontus Winnberg, famously known as Bloodshy & Avant, team up with American singer-producer Andrew Wyatt to form Miike Snow.

The result – a musical triumph, if their eponymous first outing is anything to go by.

Miike Snow is a commendable, polished production. BBC Music proclaims it to be “damn near perfect”, and the Guardian calls it “…intelligent pop music that has the ability to cradle taste-making purists and reach anthemic heights”.

Of course, UrbanWire expects nothing else from a group of esteemed producers – the Swedes have worked with dance-pop music luminaries Madonna, Kylie Minogue, Jennifer Lopez and Britney Spears, while the American has headlined a few bands (Fires of Rome being one of them) and recently collaborated with Mark Ronson to produce Daniel Merriweather‘s latest album Love and War.

What’s remarkable is that the guys managed to garner genuine interest for their music without revealing their star identities – they only did so after coming out from hiding behind the Internet to perform a couple of sets in New York.

The music can best be described as ambitious ‘winter pop’ – the type that transports you to a mildly cool, sophisticated winter’s day in Scandinavia. It’s loaded with addictive hooks and atmospheric charm. The album starts off strong and wanes off at the middle, before pulling itself together and concluding with aplomb. It’s an album that talks of loss and ruined love, but the musical arrangements, which sound upbeat and amazingly refreshing, suggest otherwise.

Their latest single, Silvia, is a standout of the album. The track,  released on Jan 25, is pure aural nirvana. Wyatt’s expressive vocals exhibit a sense of regret, longing and emotional depth over lost love, while the music reaches admirable crescendos that warrant repetition on your playlist. “Animal” brings together electronica and heady pop, and “Burial” is a track that sounds playful, but the macabre lyrics, which talk of misery and the pointlessness of fixing a broken relationship, are anything but fun.

The lyrics are a show of juxtaposition – poetry interspersed with contemporary American-style, rap-influenced lyricism. We like it that the stanzas don’t repeat themselves – a common annoyance in the latest pop tunes like J. Lo’s “Louboutins” and Chris Brown’s “I Can Transform Ya”. However, it sometimes seems like the band’s trying too hard to come up with arresting lyrics steeped in poetic melancholy that, quite frankly, don’t belong in the same league as anything from local music veteran Leslie Low.

That these guys have no name recognition in Singapore (or anywhere else!) is really unfortunate. This may be intentional, judging from their reputation for keeping things under the radar, but we see no reason why these guys should not be given the attention they deserve.

[Pullout quote]
“Well, you know, I think that doing interviews is great. But I don’t think we have any interest at all in being pop stars or anything like that. In fact, that’s kind of our worst fear…  We want people to get into that image; it’s more about, “Go have a crazy adventure,” rather than have it be about our personalities. Because it really isn’t. It’s an experiment, and it’s an adventure. And it’s not much about anything else. I think it’s always a mistake when you start connecting a band to a personality. You begin to limit what you’re able to do.” – Andrew Wyatt, interview with Interview Magazine, June 2009.

The UrbanWire gives Miike Snow 4 out of 5 stars.

Title: Miike Snow
Artiste: Miike Snow
Language:English
Record Label:Columbia
Release Date: 12 May 2009 (Sweden), 23 October 2009 (United Kingdom)

Tracklist:
1. Animal
2. Burial
3. Silvia
4. Song for No One
5. Black & Blue
6. Sans Soleil
7. A Horse is Not a Home
8. Cult Logic
9. Plastic Jungle
10. In Search Of

11. Faker

12. Billie Holiday (Bonus track)