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Mews are a little known four piece from Denmark well recognized for their stuning visuals that accompany their music. Featuring singer/guitarist Jonas Bjerre, Bo Madsen (guitar), Johan Wohlert (bass) and Silas Graae (drums) they produce the kind of ethereal bollocks pop that is simultaneously heart wrenching and humbly pretentious, akin to US group Mercury Rev. Like Rev, Mew originally formed in order to write music for the images and videos they were making. Recently, this has changed and the compositions have taken over as the focus of their creative energy.
Having moved to the UK a year ago and signed to Sony affiliate Epic they have already developed a significant scene in their Danish homeland and the Scandinavian region having domestically released a number of records through their own label Evil Office and performed at festivals throughout Europe.
Their forthcoming UK debut however won't just be a re-release of this existing material. Instead, a mixture of new songs will be recorded whilst existing tracks are themselves updated to where Mew is today. Mew's next single, 'Comforting Sounds' a marathon track, clocking in well over eight minutes will be released on the 24th March.
When I was chatting to them, the prospect of a DVD of their visuals being released was discussed. Whilst the band seems eager for the added dimension to be more readily available it seems that interest from the label was still lacking for this prospect in the near future.
Not that they're disheartened. Jonas feels proud that more and more people are coming to see them, even on this second tour with Martin Grech covering many of the cities that they travelled together in October further people are coming along solely to see Mew's performance.
But if Tuesday's performance was anything to go by, Mew still have a few problems to smooth over. Guitarist Bo Madsen appeared arrogant throughout and seemed rude to some of those that had come to see him. Whilst rock star arrogance is nothing new, Mew are barely above the toilet circuit in the UK and the whole band's apparent fatigue was at times painful. Having seen them in October I knew they could do better but somehow it wasn't happening.
They have a great potential and grand aspirations, but Mew are as much in danger of becoming a parody of artistic vanity and conceit as they are of being the next MTV2 stars.
Mew have a currently untitled album out on the 7th April. Whether or not their songs will work on record is yet to be seen, but you should at the very least borrow a friend's CD.
Photos by Thomas Toti
