iTunes Single of the Week Review: Miike Snow’s ‘Paddling Out’

After hit singles “Animal” and “Silvia” it shouldn’t be anyone’s fault to get excited about an opportunity to download anything by the Swedish indie-pop trio Miike Snow, especially when it’s free. But, “Paddling Out,” this week’s iTunes Single of The Week, will deflate that excitement as the electric-neural-whiplash that past tracks delivered are nowhere to be found in this single from the band’s newly released sophomore album, “Happy To You.”

In “Paddling Out” the band’s heavy-hearted piano keys return but with an upbeat that instantly throws off one’s previous pulse on the three-piece Swede band made up of producers Christian Karlsson, Pontus Winnberg and Andrew Wyatt. The keys aren’t the organic weaves of music that once oozed through your consciousness, but they’re sampled tones chopped and arranged over zesty percussive beats, while electro fader-flares channel the momentum in and out to create a spatial depth and texture to the traditional uni-sensual experience.

We often judge music by comparing, hand in hand, what an artist brought before and what the artist has made now. It’s one route, nonetheless a very subjective route, to gauge what an artist consistently dares to bring to the table that sets themselves apart from the pack. With Miike Snow, it’s the ambiguous poetry-fused with emo-energy that forces one to either move to the next track- too much angst and ambiguity, or to decode the message as Miike Snow has clearly taken the stand as the latest artisans of indie-pop-poetry.

Overall, “Paddling Out,” lacks that crucial drill to the senses that essentially separates Miike Snow’s good from Miike Snow’s bad. With so much creativity, instruments, and talent at their disposal, the nostalgic grooves from the Easy Listening era trips up the guys to fall flat on their face. This free download will have some fans bewildered with a tissue thin layer of optimism for “Happy To You,” as this first dive into the new album does not kindle one’s imagination, as Miike Snow once did, rather, this new single awkwardly ties one’s feet to rhythms from an age too distant. Not what a listener would have expected from a band that a couple of years back looked to have been on the precipice of pop-art-music’s next undiscovered frontier.