Danish quartet MEW have already garnered something of a reputation for their surreal home movie backdrops when playing live. After all, you'd expect a band utilising images of dolls in car crashes and violin-playing cats to be rather, ah, different.
And, even divorced from visuals, MEW certainly possess an unsettling presence with this 3-track affair providing a neat enough introduction.
Actually, the whole thing's got a rather quixotic quality about it. Curiously-titled lead track "Am I Wry? No" is by some way the most immediate thing here, with the grand introduction, Bo Madsen's pneumatic guitar riffing and Silas Graae's drum clatter setting up something exciting for vocalist Jonas Bjerre to emote around. He has a strangely fragile, but effective set of pipes, sounding here like a less sexually-aroused Brian Molko.
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The other tracks "Like Paper Cuts" and "Snowflake" cement the good impression, despite venturing several kilometres off the beaten track. The former is framed by creaking floorboards and raindrop piano and the latter bolsters it's strummed acoustic backdrop with strident cello. Both remind this writer of early, haunting Red House Painters, and ache with a similar longing.
All in all, then, an engaging and enigmatic calling card from another distinguished Scandinavian troupe.
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