by
Múm
- Record Label: 2.O.G. Ent / P.A.L.
- Release Date: Sep 22, 2009
- Critic score
- Publication
- By date
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MojoIlluminated, with its wistful wordless vocals, keening melody and swooping strings, is arguably a career peak. [Sep 2009, p.102]
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The album is at many times more open and engaging than some of those earlier gems and has a lighthearted nature that retains the balance of sating old fans and sparking new ones.
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FilterOn Sing, through chipper dulcimers, ukuleles and tons of brass, the outfit makes maelodies that, though still weary, are joyfully yet vaguely reminiscent of Pet Sounds-era Brian Wilson. [Fall 2009, p.92]
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The results are bustling, pastoral, indie pop that is often strangely outdoorsy and subtle--parts of Sing Along to Songs You Don't Know feel like one long song. Of course, there are standouts.
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Sing Along To Songs You Don’t Know isn’t quite the gaudy-T-shirted teambuilding horror it threatened to be. But Múm would do well to note that a quiet, solitary hum can be just as stirring as a rousing chorus.
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Sing Along To Songs You Don’t Know is another fine example of how múm is evolving and continually expanding on their already diverse musical pallette.
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These twelve tracks make for diverting and beguiling company for the fifty or so minutes spent with them.
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It's a sweet hotpot of northern European record-making.
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UncutTinkling lo-fi arrangements evoke the scarred spookiness of mid-period Sparklehorse, rendering the whole charmingly (and sometimes chillingly) child-like. [Sep 2009, p.88]
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There's not a truly objectionable moment on the album, but neither are there many memorable ones, making it an album as difficult to genuinely like as to dislike.
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The personality is still a little cutesy, half-baked at times and downright cultish at others (“You! Are! So! Beau! Ti! Ful! To! Us!/ We! Want! To! Keep! You! As! Our! Pets!”), but it coheres, and makes a good focal point when the music fails to. That’s fails to, not fails.
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The unavoidable truth is, Mum is struggling to find itself.
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Under The RadarSing Along is both a frustration and incorporeal mood waiting to be coaxed out of hibernation. [Fall 2009, p.65]
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The songs are generally slow, samey, and sleep-inducing, and the lyrics, any language differences notwithstanding, are hard to take seriously, even for a guy who raved about I'm From Barcelona.