It's been two years since we've heard from glitchy Icelanders Múm, with their superb Finally We Are No-one album. This is their first single from the forthcoming album, Summer Make Good, and finds them moving into slightly more dangerous territory than before.
Nightly Cares is lonely, eerie and, slightly strangely for Múm, sounds almost completely live: slow, rolling percussion, sighing accordions and twinkling melodies from far off boats at sea are punctuated by Kristín Anna Valtýsdóttir's gorgeous, tiny-voiced singing. It is also the most overtly dark thing they have ever released. Although it is sparse, Múm's exceptional melodic sense has drama piled into every note, and, at its peak, it really gets the heart thumping.
Once A Shiny Morning Puddle (a title only Múm could come up with) harks back to their more playful material circa Yesterday Was Dramatic, Today Is OK, although the violent energy hinted at in Nightly Cares come to the fore here like nothing else they have done. Beginning with sweet nursery-rhyme melodies, a brittle electric guitar soon joins in and the track suddenly accelerates to enormous speeds. Beautiful melodies are gradually overwhelmed by waves of clattering percussion, in turn then overwhelmed by waves of guitar. Every time the track seems to slow down to let you catch up another dense layer of melody and rhythm is ruthlessly added to the mix and it shoots off in another direction. It's absolutely brilliant.
The single is an encouraging return for the group and one which certainly bodes well for their forthcoming album and nationwide tour in April.
Nightly Cares is lonely, eerie and, slightly strangely for Múm, sounds almost completely live: slow, rolling percussion, sighing accordions and twinkling melodies from far off boats at sea are punctuated by Kristín Anna Valtýsdóttir's gorgeous, tiny-voiced singing. It is also the most overtly dark thing they have ever released. Although it is sparse, Múm's exceptional melodic sense has drama piled into every note, and, at its peak, it really gets the heart thumping.
Once A Shiny Morning Puddle (a title only Múm could come up with) harks back to their more playful material circa Yesterday Was Dramatic, Today Is OK, although the violent energy hinted at in Nightly Cares come to the fore here like nothing else they have done. Beginning with sweet nursery-rhyme melodies, a brittle electric guitar soon joins in and the track suddenly accelerates to enormous speeds. Beautiful melodies are gradually overwhelmed by waves of clattering percussion, in turn then overwhelmed by waves of guitar. Every time the track seems to slow down to let you catch up another dense layer of melody and rhythm is ruthlessly added to the mix and it shoots off in another direction. It's absolutely brilliant.
The single is an encouraging return for the group and one which certainly bodes well for their forthcoming album and nationwide tour in April.
