go go smear the poison ivy
You know when you've been gone for so long that, once back, you don't really want to spend hours glued to your computer, doing things like catching up with the flist or easing back into fandom in general?
...Yeah.
Released on the 25th of September, Múm's new album, titled Go Go Smear the Poison Ivy, is at once playful, lighthearted, coy. It contains none of the chillingly haunting X factor that characterized Summer Make Good, save for maybe its very last track (which, titled Winter (What We Never Were After All), sounds as though it could play astoundingly fittingly in the end of a movie such as Pan's Labyrinth). Although it's strange seeing "They Made Frogs Smoke 'Til They Exploded" in the early middle of the album considering the track's animal cruelty message when compared to the rest of the album's general thematic elements--it's thrown in like a sort of monkey wrench--I rather like this version of the 4:02-long song better than the 7-minute-long track titled "Don't Pull His Legs Off" found in Hlaupanotan Session. This album version's track contains all of the favored climax without the added 3-minute exposition.
The album also exhibits a revival of some of the childish, funky, jangly sounds of Múm's older records; when I listen to this album, I feel like I don't have to worry about any troubles that plague my mind. It's much love. And if you didn't think that the typically childish, prepubescent voices identifying the band couldn't pull off the epitome of sensual, think again. There are quite a few number of tracks in this album that offer a flirtatious, even lusty slant to the atmosphere presented. Take "Guilty Rocks," for example (see lyrics), which starts off with a rather ahem bad-ass sort of tune and details, in a sort of hopelessly doomed voice, the--well. It almost sounds very Dido or Jem. "These Eyes Are Berries" (see lyrics) brings to mind something that makes me seem but a trifle obsessed,* and "A Little Bit, Sometimes" (lyrics) has to it an element of truth about (the nature of) attraction.
In conclusion. I don't think I could possibly love Múm any more. Especially since, you know, many of this album's tracks are about love. (Love and fear.)
Rating: ★★★★☆
Most frequently played tracks: "A Little Bit, Sometimes" and "Marmalade Fire"
*Think along the lines of the same comment I made about PJ Harvey's "The Slow Drug."
...Yeah.
Released on the 25th of September, Múm's new album, titled Go Go Smear the Poison Ivy, is at once playful, lighthearted, coy. It contains none of the chillingly haunting X factor that characterized Summer Make Good, save for maybe its very last track (which, titled Winter (What We Never Were After All), sounds as though it could play astoundingly fittingly in the end of a movie such as Pan's Labyrinth). Although it's strange seeing "They Made Frogs Smoke 'Til They Exploded" in the early middle of the album considering the track's animal cruelty message when compared to the rest of the album's general thematic elements--it's thrown in like a sort of monkey wrench--I rather like this version of the 4:02-long song better than the 7-minute-long track titled "Don't Pull His Legs Off" found in Hlaupanotan Session. This album version's track contains all of the favored climax without the added 3-minute exposition.
The album also exhibits a revival of some of the childish, funky, jangly sounds of Múm's older records; when I listen to this album, I feel like I don't have to worry about any troubles that plague my mind. It's much love. And if you didn't think that the typically childish, prepubescent voices identifying the band couldn't pull off the epitome of sensual, think again. There are quite a few number of tracks in this album that offer a flirtatious, even lusty slant to the atmosphere presented. Take "Guilty Rocks," for example (see lyrics), which starts off with a rather ahem bad-ass sort of tune and details, in a sort of hopelessly doomed voice, the--well. It almost sounds very Dido or Jem. "These Eyes Are Berries" (see lyrics) brings to mind something that makes me seem but a trifle obsessed,* and "A Little Bit, Sometimes" (lyrics) has to it an element of truth about (the nature of) attraction.
In conclusion. I don't think I could possibly love Múm any more. Especially since, you know, many of this album's tracks are about love. (Love and fear.)
Rating: ★★★★☆
Most frequently played tracks: "A Little Bit, Sometimes" and "Marmalade Fire"
*Think along the lines of the same comment I made about PJ Harvey's "The Slow Drug."