Miike Snow Bring A Flurry Of Noise In Their Wake
By Tankboy in Arts & Entertainment on Oct 16, 2012 6:00PM
No, no one in Miike Snow is named Miike. Instead the band's core is Swedish producers Christian Karlsson and Pontus Winnberg and Yank singer Andrew Wyatt and they released an arresting self-titled debut album spawning the hit that you couldn't escape in 2009, "Animal." We saw them play at The Empty Bottle that same year and discovered that onstage the band was delightfully weird, donning masks and willfully deconstructing this song or that and allowing things to digress into percussion heavy asides. It was deeply weird at times but ultimately refreshing. Honestly we didn't expect their art pop collaboration to last beyond that initial album.
But last they did, and Miike Snow's Happy To You came out earlier this year and was an even stronger effort than their debut. The band has coalesced it's pop leanings and integrated them more fully into their penchant for studio knob twiddling to create a deeply compelling mixture of prog, rock and dance music. And while that sounds like an unlikely mix, the people are obviously ready for it as demonstrated by a rapturous reception of a massive crowd when they played Lollapalooza this summer. Since that wide open outdoor space barely contained the band's energy we can say with great confidence the band has far outgrown their humble early shows in the indie rock clubs of the world.
Miike Snow plays tomorrow, October 17, at The Congress, 2135 N Milwaukee, 6 p.m., $29.50, all ages