HALF THE WORLD IS WATCHING ME

Half the World Is Watching Me is the second full-length studio album by Danish experimental Pop/ Rock act Mew. The album was released 3 years after the release of the band´s debut full-length studio album A Triumph for Man and sees Mew in a much more mature state.

Half the World Is Watching Me is a kind of strange album as it contains five songs that would later be re-arranged and re-recorded for Mew´s international breakthrough Frengers (2003). Namely the songs: Am I Wry? No, Her voice Is Beyond Her Years, 156, Symmetry, and Comforting Sounds. So if you´ve only discovered Mew after Frengers there are only three songs on this album that you haven´t heard before. Of course the versions of the above mentioned songs are different on Half the World Is Watching Me compared to the versions on Frengers. The problem is that the versions on Frengers are much better to these ears and that makes Half the World Is Watching Me kind of dispensable IMO. The three tracks on Half the World Is Watching Me that don´t appear on Frengers ( Mica, Saliva and King Christian) are all good songs but nothing too special.

The production is professional and suits the music well.

Seen in retrospect Half the World Is Watching Me is mostly a fan release as most of the songs appear in better versions on Frengers, but seen on it´s own ( this album was released 3 years before Frengers) the album does deserve a 3 star rating. Good alternative pop/ rock with a few semi-progressive ideas.