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Artists Of The Year
CMU Albums Of The Year 2009: Mew – No More Stories
By CMU Editorial | Published on Tuesday 15 December 2009
As we head towards the end of the year, we’ll be revealing, in no particular order, our ten favourite albums of 2009. Today, Mew’s ‘No More Stories’.
It was with some trepidation that I approached Mew’s latest album. Having been a massive fan of the band for the best part of a decade, I was nonetheless aware that album five is often the point at which many once great artists completely run out of ideas and cause our relationship to end in bitter disappointment. Thankfully, this was not the case on this occasion, as ‘No More Stories’ is packed full of as many great ideas and delightfully overblown pop tunes as any Mew album that has gone before it.
Mew have always been a band who have really understood rhythm, and that is more apparent than ever on this album. Particularly on ‘Introducing Palace Players’, a track where Bo Madsen’s disjointed guitar part and Silas Graae’s Tortoise-esque stuttering drums barely fit together, but are pulled in by Jonas Bjerre’s vocals, making the piece a whole. It seems that the departure of bassist Johan Wohlert in 2006, following the release of previous album ‘And The Glass Handed Kites’, has served to focus the attention-to-detail of the remaining three members ever further.
Latest single, ‘Repeaterbeater’, is another highlight, featuring one of the finest big choruses Mew have ever penned, putting it right up their with older songs like ‘Snow Brigade’ and ‘She Came Home For Christmas’. ‘Hawaii’, similarly, builds from an almost-samba beat and music box melodies to a soaring chorus, before dropping back into a state of fragility to begin the process again.
The whole album is filled not only with great songs, but clever little touches add something special, and make every repeat listen much more enjoyable.
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