Múm - Sing Along to Songs You Don't Know [Album]

Morr Music

October 20, 2009, 10:07 PM

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Sing Along? That’s the last thing that those familiar with previous Múm albums will expect - dense and experimental expeditions that have more in common with underwater landscaping than they do ‘songs.’

Things start off promisingly; ‘If I were a fish, and you were a seashell, would you marry me anyway? Would you have my babies?’ That’s the opening lyric, and its tone is familiar to those who have adopted the tweed revolution in all earnestness - with bands like Architecture in Helsinki and Belle and Sebastian. Indeed, 'If I Were a Fish,' with its American electric guitar twangs and clever close harmonies is about as close to sing-along as múm have ever been.

An energetic pace is maintained throughout most of the album. 'Prophecies and Reversed Memories' is bouncy and lively, like a kangaroo in a 60's children TV show. 'Húllabbalabbalúlú' (pronunciation usefully demonstrated at the beginning of the song) is a magically and unconventionally structured song that feels like its conquering mountains - it would make an equally good marching song for Sendak’s Wild Things as anything by Arcade Fire. 'Kay-aay-kú-kú-ko-kex' is less easily interpreted, it gloriously makes no sense whatsoever, but remains a very Múm-like celebration of changing musical panoramas.

There’s a vast array of sounds, including some intelligent treatment of acoustic instrumentation to create something otherworldly. Some of the more intelligent parts come in the tinkering afterward, and it’s hard to complain of overproduction when the production is so integral. It would be like complaining that a Mozart oboe concerto had too much oboe.

Full marks go to the brilliant 'A River Don’t Stop To Breathe,' however much slang English grammar might grate when sung by foreign groups. That insignificant niggle aside, it’s the only song that truly links the lyrics to the music. A regression to a pacey but measured 4/4 beat played against an unctuous string arrangement really makes you feel like your caressing the river in some sort of parallel dimension 1920's motorboat. It also marks along with several other incidences. Hear the submerged piano and choir in the last track, 'Ladies of New Worlds' - with Múm’s continuing preoccupation with and beautiful interpretation of all things nautical, as clearly communicated in 2004’s "Summer Make Good."

It’s mostly all gravy, but not quite all of it. 'The Smell of Today' loses focus and sounds a little like they’ve thrown a percussion sundae at a giant wall-shaped microphone. 'Blow Your Nose' is hard to interpret and fails as both a haunting lullaby and as an effervescent alarm clock, the things it comes closest to. And 'The Last Shapes of Never' contains some beautifully inventive chorales that are inexplicably never given a chance to develop.

There may be a song called ‘Sing Along’ but you’re better off paying attention to the melancholy and arcane denouement to that song that the spirited beginning, or the extended album name from which it’s derived. There are superficial concessions to ‘easy-digest’ music, not least the adoption of the English language nearly throughout. By the time you reach the penultimate track 'Illuminated,' which barely contains any lyrics at all, let alone the stuff you’d find on a karaoke machine, you’ll have long realised that Múm intend to remain as unfathomable as they’ve been in the past - sunken angels content to make music in their eerie caves.

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