Pitchfork

Hey kid, have you heard? Not cool is the new cool. And I don't mean "Man, hair metal is so ridiculous and tacky, therefore it's cool," cool. I mean "Wow, this is so uncool not even ironically liking it will vindicate me," cool. It's a little bit like the nostalgia cool that's all the rage these days-- love for 80s cartoons and movies and such-- except it's going on right now. And Danish dream-proggers Mew are leading the charge of the new cool-not-cool.

Way back in 2003-- before America realized not cool equates to cool-- Mew released their major label debut, Frengers, in the UK and Europe. The album bore a not very cool cover depicting a matador, which has precisely nothing to do with the aesthetic of the songs therein-- songs culled from Mew's first two self-released records, A Triumph for Man (1997) and Half the World Is Watching Me (2000). Great news, people: Frengers (apparently a portmanteau of "friends" and "strangers") finally comes out in the U.S. on January 23, 2007, via Columbia.

Among its treasures: multi-part opener "Am I Wry? No", the soaring "156", eerie "SheSpider", and epic, 10+ minute closer "Comforting Sounds", all of which have been staples of Mew's recent live sets in North America in support of this year's And the Glass Handed Kites. And have you heard the chorus on "Snow Brigade"? It totally kicks.

Frengers also features a guest vocal from Swedish avant-pop princess Stina Nordenstam on "Her Voice Is Beyond Her Years" and a pretty amazing duet with an adolescent American girl named Becky Jarrett that singer Jonas Bjerre met through the Internet (not cool = cool, recall) on "Symmetry". No joke, read about it here.

Pretty much every song on this thing is epic, huge, and overblown, not unlike a child's imagination-- and not unlike cornerstones of our youth like The NeverEnding Story, The Princess Bride, and The Goonies. Dudes, in case you weren't sure, I'm stoked.

Along with pretty much every indie band ever, Mew are also in the running for best video of the year on MTV2's "Subterranean". Tune in December 17 at 1 a.m. (Eastern) to see if their clip for Kites banger "Special" made the viewer-selected top ten. We have a funny feeling it just might have.

Frengers:

01 Am I Wry? No
02 156
03 Snow Brigade
04 Symmetry
05 Behind the Drapes
06 Her Voice Is Beyond Her Years
07 Eight Flew Over, One Was Destroyed
08 She Came Home For Christmas
09 SheSpider
10 Comforting Sounds