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CD review: Miike Snow’s ‘Happy to You’

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Annie Zaleski

The Details

Miike Snow
Happy to You
Three stars

The Swedish trio Miike Snow counts among its members Bloodshy & Avant, the futuristic production duo known for their work with Britney Spears, Madonna and Kylie Minogue. With that in mind, it makes sense the band’s best-known song, “Animal,” is surging electropop—or that the best parts of their second album, Happy To You, have the dancefloor in mind. Galloping rhythms and pulsing keyboard boomerangs drive the spooky “Black Tin Box,” while “Paddling Out” is kicky disco with roots in sleek house music, and the Röyksopp-esque “Enter The Joker’s Lair” has burbling martini-bar beats and whimsical synth effects. The rest of Happy To You contains pleasant but somewhat generic tunes full of twinkly percussion, earnest falsetto vocals and layers of polished keyboards and piano. In the end, the album falls somewhere between neo-new-wave, fanciful indie-pop and throwback to the U.K.’s late-’80s “baggy” scene—but doesn’t do much to help Miike Snow establish a distinct voice.

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