AND THE GLASS HANDED KITES

So, the thing about Mew: They do excellent, driving, prog-pop. Something (with the exception of some Gentle Giant) I didn't quite believe to be possible. But here it is. Oh yeah, most of their album covers are freaking awful. Particularly "And the Glass Handed Kites".

With "Kites" all the songs segue together, even if there is no earthly reason for them too. It's probably one of the few things I liked on this album as it makes "Kites" seem much longer than it actually is, and for the most part I don't like that--albums should seem shorter than they actually are (because I'm too busy doing air drums and singing along with my awful voice, ideally).

One thing I like about Mew is the musicianship. Not incredibly complicated, but they do what they can to make their songs a little more unusual and skewed and interesting. Check out "The Zookeeper's Boy", it starts off like normal hard rock/alternative rock hybrid until the chorus kicks in and suddenly around a hundred copies of Jonas Bjerre's majestic voice are asking me if I'm his lady. And I don't know what to think. For that song, maybe. It's pretty unexpected and transcendent, although as far as I can tell the lyrics are pretty random. You've got pieces like this:

Tall just like a giraffe You have to climb to find its head But if there's a glitch You're an ostrich You've got your head in the sand

....Right.

Virtually all of the first ten or so songs on this album are great, and then it slows down and becomes a bit of a downer. It's not really a bad thing, but it really kills the momentum built by the previous songs. There are a few good "sleeper" songs in there, songs that you don't quite catch on to until later.

Overall this is a pretty good album. Not great, due to a poor choice of track arrangement, but there are a slew of good poppy rock songs with progressive coloring.