Mew - London Metro Club - January 2003
Close your eyes, and imagine standing in Oxford St's subterranean Metro Club, and not feeling the sticky beer-clad floor, spattered with lumps of fresh chewing gum glued to your feet. Imagine that just for once, you're not surrounded by yammering hordes puffing fag smoke into every available orifice on your face. It's an illusion of course - open your eyes, and Metro's is still the same grubby, airless basement with shoddy sound and merciless blacklights that make everyone look like bloodless drug addicts. But close your eyes again, and the sensory mirage comes rushing back; you're in a better place, where the woes of the world melt away out of the corners of your closed vision. This is the effect that Mew have.
The last time i saw these slickly-attired Scandinavian dream-pop artisans, their wistful melodic ramblings seemed a little stilted, composed for effect to a tried-and-tested formula. That was at the Camden Monarch, one of the better venues on the toilet circuit. Now I'm at Metros, and by rights the all-round inferiority of this venue should dampen any and all of Mew's redeeming qualities. Curiously, it has quite the reverse effect, for their set turns out to be the most exquisite experience imaginable.
It's a polished, familiar blueprint; honeyed vocals (reminiscent of a less shrill Mark Greaney) flex and reverberate, hitting the high notes with ease, underlaid with an intricately layered melodic backdrop that washes over you without resistance. In short, it's absolutely gorgeous. Recent single "Am I Wry", at once desolate and euphoric, showcases their woebegone sonic grace to perfection, while the set's closer, "Comforting Sounds", sounding like a more tangible Sigur Rós, works a patchwork of emotions into a fervent outro, piling guitars upon guitars to magnificent effect. Accompanying the set is a tableau of videos, made by the band (who are ex-film students). As each song hums and throbs, line-drawn angels flit across the screen behind the stage, and a matrix of red and blue neon hurtles towards the enchanted crowd, its intensity matched by singer Jonas Bjerre's piercing vocals.
It's beautiful stuff, but they're not an amazing prospect yet - they tug on all the right heartstrings but still don't quite overcome the feeling of disconnection. Despite their best efforts, their memory doesn't remain seared onto your neural tissue for more than a couple of hours afterwards. The foundations are all there however, and with a little more time and refinement, they could break hearts.