And the Glass Handed Kites

Those looking Not a lot of bands make records like And The Glass-Handed Kites anymore. Grandiose in conception and epic in scope, it puts Mew in a rarefied circle of bands--Sigur Ros, The Mars Volta--pushing at rock's glass ceiling in the hope of breaking through to some brave new plane.

Those looking for a quick fix may be frightened off by the opening "The Circuitry Of The Wolf", tangles of Sonic Youth guitar and distorted drums synchronised into sinister, driving riffs. Persist, though, for it's not long until the ice begins to crack: "Apocalypso" is rent by bursts of spectacular tunefulness and glimmering xylophone passages, before melding imperceptibly into "Special", one of the album's more delightfully restrained moments. "The Zoopkeeper's Boy", meanwhile, imagines Mercury Rev holidaying within the Arctic Circle, chiming guitars and curiously zoological lyrics melding into something quite unique.

If there's a problem to And The Glass Handed Kites, it that Mew constantly seem to reaching for the stars--a noble aim, but one that, across 55 minutes, can be quite wearing. Like Sigur Ros, they're a band for a time and a place, the peak of slow-moving glaciers, the honeymoon suite of the ice hotel. Don't overplay them, or they lose their magic. --Louis Pattison (Review copyright Amazon.co.uk)