Miike Snow, Miike Snow

There’s an awesomely free, effortless feel to Miike Snow’s eponymous debut, so much so that you can practically hear the roguish grins and collective shrug — Miike Snow feels not like a trio of musicians setting out to “make” something, but instead just letting everything spill out and grabbing onto whatever sounds good. I mean, look at the name of the group, for crying out loud; supposedly the guys had a friend named “Mike Snow” and wanted to show off their love for Japanese auteur Takashi Miike, so they came up with this goofy amalgam that practically screams “joke band!”

All of which belies the insane amount of talent on display here, however. Even before you know each of their respective pedigrees — singer Andrew Wyatt was previously in The A.M. and is also currently doing stuff with Fires of Rome and Tiggers, while Swedes Christian Karlsson and Pontus Winnberg won a freaking Grammy for Britney Spears’ “Toxic” and have worked with all kinds of famous folks under the alias Bloodshy and Avant — it’s immediately apparent that the trio is so damn good at this stuff that they make it all sound easy. They toss out killer hooks and throw in little mind-blowing flourishes seemingly on a whim, and I’m left shaking my head in wonderment and feeling like I need to hear it again.

As you might guess, there’s a bit of a resemblance here to fellow Swedish pop heroes, especially Peter Bjorn & John (for whom the Miike Snow guys have done some remixing). “Song For No One,” in particular, hops onto a peppy, wide-smiling PB&J beat and guitar riff and rides it to the end of the line, in the process incorporating one of the best damn basslines I’ve heard in quite a while. The track also makes me think of unforgivably-overlooked retro-’70s popsters The Push Kings, with its cheery, sunny vibe and soul-pop vocals.

Then there’s the more out-and-out funk/soul stuff, like “Black and Blue,” which comes off like Basement Jaxx fronted by, well, Prince (no, I’m serious; check out that falsetto) and which incorporates a cool-ass, crunchy-sounding keyboard line, the kind most bands would probably build a whole song around but which here only pops its head up in the choruses and then fades into the background again. “Sylvia” follows a similar path, albeit taking a route that’s a bit darker and more mournful, and features possibly the last good use for AutoTune you’re likely to ever hear, when the dreaded tool morphs Wyatt’s voice into a near-unrecognizable electronic wail.

More than anything else, though, the tracks on Miike Snow make me think of Peter Gabriel. There’s the easy amalgamation of traditional pop-band instrumentation with electronics and keys, which is something Gabriel practically pioneered back in the ’80s, and the playfulness of it all keeps dragging me back to So, even on more somber tracks like “Sans Soleil” (which melds Coldplay-esque piano lines to a samba beat but still manages to bring things down somewhat).

Plus, there’s Wyatt’s voice, which, like Gabriel’s, is nicely roughened and earth-level soulful but can — given the right setting — soar skyward, pulling the listener right along with it. On “Animal,” for instance, the vocals bring to mind “Big Time,” and the resemblance is strengthened by the bumping, jumping, insistent, almost ska/reggae beat and happy-sounding keys. “Burial,” with its military-sounding drums and surprisingly cheery electronics, evokes later hit “Steam,” and I hear echoes of a lot of Gabriel’s other songs throughout.

Influences aside, the more I listen to Miike Snow, the more I feel convinced that it’s a bona-fide masterpiece of techno-tinged pop. It’s so ridiculously, insanely infectious that even the more over-the-top electro-funk tracks — which could easily sound sappy and overdone, in the wrong hands — sound freaking perfect, all by themselves. The “gee, this sounds like…” stuff becomes less and less important, and then I start feeling like I just need to hear that awesome, awesome song (pick one) just one more time. Okay, and maybe once more again after that…