CD Reviews

Mew

And The Glass Handed Kites | Sony

By SHARON STEEL | September 26, 2006

3.0 Stars

Now that Montreal has been drained of exportable Canadian bands, Scandinavia is being tapped for fresh discoveries. And Mew are the unclassifiable Danish quartet at the top of the list. This release is a prog-rock tour-de-force crafted as one long song. Transitional time signature changes and careful overlapping passages give it the air of a symphonic arrangement. “The Zookeeper’s Boy” morphs from brutal, fleshy bass thumping into a twinkling falsetto chant; “Fox Club” is an all-too-brief 65-second placeholder, and “Special,” like the gorgeous Scandinavian blonde who dyes her hair black to stand out in a crowd, has definite single potential — or maybe it’s just a four-plus-minute hook. Mew aren’t quite a goth Dream Theater, but neither is their fourth album simply another dull Loveless homage: Kites’ ugly-beautiful harmonies are hypnotic and attention-getting in the same way that a painted opera star lights up a stark stage. The difference is that Mew can unfold the drama without the make-up, or in their case the weird animation that typifies their live gigs. Kites is fussy with its own too-pretty trimmings, but peel back the masquerade and it’s still got fantastic bone structure.

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Topics: CD Reviews , Dream Theater, MEW

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