The previously mentioned exception is "Húllabbalabbalúú". Busy hi-hats and rough-hewn handclaps give "Kay-Ray-Kú-Kú-Kó-Kex" a retro-soul tone. "The Smell of Today Is Sweet Like the Breastmilk in the Wind" uses not only chintzy electronics and vaguely disco-punk percussion, but also sloping strings, guitars with the trebly chime of the Afropop-influenced stuff that has been popular lately, and, oh yeah, Belle and Sebastian-style harmonies that become a liability when most of those instruments drop out- no Stuart Murdoch literary mien here. You might hear a music box being wound up, or an acoustic guitar string buzzing imperfectly, or what seems to be a didgeridoo. With arguably one exception, the most enjoyable aspect of the album is Múm's ongoing apprecation for sonic detail, though that can get tiresome fast when such details are attached to cringeworthy songs. Unfortunately, it's also filled with bewildering decision after bewildering decision. Billed as a response to the recent unrest in Múm's native country, it's an entirely peaceful, largely melancholy, and clearly well-meaning record. Sing Along to Songs You Don't Know still melds electronic and organic elements, as the band have been doing since their early-millennium breakthrough, cramming in male-female harmonies, lo-fi percussion, rhapsodically blue strings, prepared piano, hammered dulcimer, marimbas, ukuleles, and even a parakeet alongside guitars and synths. Múm's latest can be childish, but it isn't cute, and despite some (relatively) inventive arrangements, this time it's a bit of a slog on a purely musical level. Artists like Japan's Lullatone and Tenniscoats have used similar naïve-folk ramshackle wispiness toward their own ambitious, endearing ends, tickling and prodding cuteness toward its avant-garde extremes. Already one transitional LP (2007's Go Go Smear the Poison Ivy) removed from singer Kristín Anna Valtýsdóttir's departure to go make backwards recordings with Avey Tare, Múm remain pretty obsessed with the kind of childlike innocence that drove people nuts about Valtýsdóttir's impish persona, let alone her voice. That's as true as ever on Sing Along to Songs You Don't Know. But uhh, few bands outside 1980s bedsit-indie circles would be better suited to rep the Beatitudes' "blessed are the meek" rap than Múm.
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