The Severed Cortex

Link: http://www.myspace.com/miikesnow

No that's not a typo.  Apparently it is pronounced 'Mike' and the name comes from nothing more than a mutual acquaintance of the band.  Who names their kid Miike with 2 i's?  Turns out, no one.  They completely made it up.  Crazy Swedes.  Outside of the U.S., the best pop music happens in Sweden, although some will argue legitimately that the absolute best pop music being made anywhere is Sweden.   Personally I still feel Portland and Seattle still reign because I can name twenty Northwest U.S. artists in less than 30 seconds.  It would take me at least a minute to get that many from Sweden.   I wouldn't count Abba either.   I mean, I count Abba as a Swedish band because they are, but not in the pop circles of today.  Instead I'd go for Peter, Bjorn & John,  Jose Gonzalez (via Brazil), Jens Lekman, and Datarock as the reigning heirs of Swedish pop.   I might throw in Tallest Man on Earth just because he has a cool moniker.

So who the heck is Miike Snow?  The band that is, not the mutual acquaintance.  Several months ago I wrote about one of my new favorite bands Fires of Rome.  Unbeknownst to me at the time I purchased the Miike Snow debut,  one of the members of Miike Snow, Andrew Wyatt, is also in Fires of Rome.  Technically I didn't know Andrew Wyatt was in Fires of Rome or if I did it was buried in the browner parts of my brain and I just didn't jossle the right brain waves around to shake it loose.  Doesn't matter.  Miike Snow couldn't be more different than Fires of Rome, the latter (if you read the review) being more eclectic straight ahead rock.

The other two members of Miike Snow are the production team of Bloodshy & Avant.  Who?  Yeah, I had to ask that too.  Turns out that if I paid attention to Britney Spears, other than those pics of her scary beef curtains, I'd know who Bloodshy & Avant are.  They are the producers of Britney's hit Toxic, which even I have to admit is one of the more listenable candy pop songs she's put out.  Egad, Drew!  Did you just admit to liking a Britney Spears song?  Have you lost your effing mind?   Yes I'm aware that more than ten people have heard of Britney.  Heck there's probably ten of you that skipped everything I've written in this review and just moved right on down to the video of her below.  Some of you probably have your pants unbuttoned.  Freaks.  Yeah, I'm not proud of touting a production team for a musical corporate puppet.  I'm not real comfortable with it either, but I try to reconcile it by understanding that finding a big bag of money at your doorstep allows you to do whatever you want to later on in life.  I'd be a hypocrite if I said I wouldn't sell out just so I could coast the tail end of my life.  I'd still be a hypocrite, just not for that.

The three members test out Drew's big bag of money theory with their eponymous release and they manage to make a professional sounding album without all that corporate gloss that I love to hate.  The sound is mostly electronica, somewhere between lounge and house, but it hits the sweet spot of occasionally leaning to the techno but not at the expense of freaking out the normal people.  For the most part this works.  It's certainly a very accessible work, appealing to a wide variety of people.   Most of the good stuff appears in the first two-thirds of the release.  After A Horse Is Not A Home, a sizeable hit for the band, the album slinks off quietly.  Up until that point it reaches the lofty status of 'art' in my book.  At various points it reminds me a lot of Stars, Bell X1, and even a little bit like Fires of Rome.   If you like the first seven songs, or at least most of them, go ahead and get the whole disc.

And then watch Britney.