Zoo time
Denmark's finest musical export Mew have been knocking on the door of mainstream success in the UK for some time now and with the " Zookeeper's Boy" - the third cut to be taken from ambitious sophomore album "Mew and The Glass Handed Kites" - the band may finally make the breakthrough they've long deserved. Manager Alan McGee (yes, that Alan McGee!) has described them as "the world's only stadium indie band" and he certainly has a point.
The Zookeeper's Boy is one of the band's less obtuse moments, a soaring, glacial epic it makes their post punk/garage rock obsessed peers look like they're operating in a monochrome world. Imagine Muse on prozac and shorn of pomposity and you'll be close to capturing the essence of Mew. Over waves of crashing guitars and sparkling glocks/keys Jonas Bjerre angelically narrates a tale of (unrequited?) love that features the bizarre couplet "but if there's a glitch, you're an ostrich / you've got your head in the sand". He could be reciting the contents of the Yellow Pages for all this writer cares as this is achingly gorgeous stuff. "The Zookeeper's Boy" then, what the term "sonic cathedral" was invented for.