FRENGERS

After falling in love with And The Glass Handed Kites it felt natural to explore more of Mew's discography and Frengers definitely felt like the next move for me considering that it was the band's breakthrough release. In a way, this album can be considered a best-of compilation of their early days since a great deal of the material featured here consists of re-recordings of songs from Mew's first two albums. There's really nothing unusual about this occurrence and many artists try to incorporate more of their early material into the repertoire once they get the attention from a wider audience. The biggest difference is that Mew didn't have a large fan base to distribute their material to, so a move of this sort was quite a bold one and, looking back at it, a successful such!

After only listening to this album for a week or so, I pretty much left it off my playlist and didn't return to it until almost a month later. By that time I've completely forgotten what this release was all about and gave it a new fair chance to impress me. This didn't work in the favor of Frengers, which is sad considering that there are quite a few nice moments scattered all throughout the album. The music is performed by a competent band that has already established their own distinguishable sound and they do have a back catalog of tunes that would satisfy most newcomers. The downside is that the material is all over the place and lacks the consistency that I expect of a single studio release. On top of that, there is also an indie rock-vibe that I truly can't stand that makes its presence known on a couple of occasions. The final nail in the coffin comes from the fact that this is not a progressive rock album and not even the 9 minute long closing track, Comforting Sounds, can change my mind about that.

All in all, Frengers is a good introduction to Mew and their early back catalog but I cannot recommend it to a fan of progressive rock since the music featured here is closer to the indie rock sound of its time than the genre that we're all accustomed to.

***** star songs: Snow Brigade (4:19)

**** star songs: Am I Wry? No (4:55) 156 (4:54) Behind The Drapes (3:38) She Came Home For Christmas (3:54) She Spider (4:37) Comforting Sounds (8:53)

*** star songs: Symmetry (5:38) Her Voice Is Beyond Her Years (2:46) Eight Flew Over, One Was Destroyed (4:46)