This rock band, Mew: They might not be “cool.” I mean, they’re Danish, and they’re pretty, and they wear natty blazers and scarves, and they play great music, all of which is pretty cool. But if you see them perform, there will come a point when Bo Madsen is playing metal-style power chords, while the long-haired 1970s-prog keyboard player unleashes his “epic” wash settings, and singer Jonas Bjerre soars up into his sappiest, most atmospheric register, and you’ll notice that they’re good with hair gel and look like soap stars, and it’ll all come clear. These guys are not “cool”-- these guys are like Queensryche. Queensryche meets Sigur Rós, but still.
And maybe that’s the pinnacle of style in Denmark (what do I know), but over here it’s uncool, and that uncoolness is part of what makes And the Glass-Handed Kites, now released in the U.S., one of the better rock records of the year. The band’s reference points are normal enough in the indie world-- Radiohead, My Bloody Valentine-- but the ambitions they draw out of them are not: These are some of the only guys around who still believe in hard-rock Valhalla, the kind of lavish, stratospheric, fairy-tale prog that’s less about making aging boys geek out and more about making young girls swoon. Who else does this-- would Stars ever rock out like this? Even a grandiose pop band like Coldplay wants to act down-to-earth, and here are these guys with their dreamy thunderstorm pop.
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