This album contains the lyrics "Hey, Folks! It's the saviours of Jazz Ballet!" 'Nuff said. A review seems superfluous, yet I will continue ...

The album is weird. Each song flows into the next but the record is saved from being disastrously samey by distinctive and catchy melodies. It mixes Pet Shop Boys-esque vocals with heavy guitars (Apocalypso), manages to make European pop pretty and beguiling (Chinaberry Tree ) and puts polyphonic breathy melodies over a backing track that wouldn't be out of place on a Def Leppard CD (Zookeeper's Boy).

There are only so many ways distorted orchestration and pure vocals can be juxtaposed. That's the reason every Evanescence song sounds just like the last and why, by the midpoint of Mew and the Glass Handed Kites languor was setting in. A pattern was developing of songs with hooky choruses and weak verses.

With the addition of a couple of sleigh bells Zookeeper's Boy could be a half decent eighties Christmas song. My favourite track Saviours of Jazz Ballet  starts well with the aforementioned lyrics of awesomeness then descends into space agey noises that remind me of that bit on Friends when Ross plays the others his keyboard composition.

Mew are initially elevated from mediocrity by some good tunes and lyrics of which even the great Natasha Bedingfield would be proud. Ultimately, however, they disappoint with a lack of imagination and a tendency to warble like Keane on a Bad Hair Day.


Lynn Roberts