miike snow iiiDetermined not to be trapped or pigeonholed into one musical genre, the Swedish trio Miike Snow (made up of Christian Karlsson, Pontus Winberg and Andrew Wyatt) are back with their third album and their first since 2012 with iii. Besides being songwriters extraordinaire (for other artists like Bruno Mars and Britney Spears) they have come to be accepted as the grandfathers of electropop. Now they are in full experimentation mode. Using samples of American artist J Dilla forced their sound into a new direction. Plenty of funk and soul rears their heads during tracks like “My Trigger” and “Heart is Full”. Showing the awareness that most of their fanbase is of the teen and young adult age category they have populated their catchy beats with lyrics young people can relate to. Meaning most songs are about love, trust or angst. Don’t think that iii is devoid of songs that will work their way into your brain. The song “Genghis Khan” is one of the strongest they have ever recorded. There is also a change in that the mindless but filled with energy tracks have now been replaced with a more mature sound. Party tracks have morphed into something that is more pure pop with darker tinges to it. Moving from guilty pleasure to music played at cocktail parties should lead to a longer shelf life for the trio. Everybody’s gotta grow up sometime.