Billy Corgan of Smashing Pumpkins fame, eat your heart out bro. Mew is everything you ever wanted to be and never got to – and Mew hasn’t even plateaued yet as their latest album professes. Danish pop sorcerers Mew reveal their fifth studio album “No More Stories…” and much like the two stanza story-like title, it’s an enigma wrapped in a riddle as the old cliché goes. Jonas and the gang lifted the album’s moniker from the stirring “Hawaii Dream”. The album is so intense, so glorious, and so gifted that it is beyond words. Indeed, the album was recorded with such intensity and attention to detail that the song “New Terrain” if played backwards is an entirely different song called “Nervous”. The first single, “Introducing Palace Players” has a frenetic and kinetic approach with pop harmonies and giant overtures. Stunningly melodic vocals once again spotlight the tremendous talent that this now trio – bassist Johan Wohlert left the group to spend more time with his family and girlfriend (Swan Lee‘s vocalist) – from Denmark. “Repeaterbeater” is the second single and promises that the band will not abandon their harder-edged tunes for pure pop opuses. Rhythmically this album is extremely challenging, offering up challenging percussion that oddly still manages to be pretty danceable. Though I was unfortunate enough not to be able to see them, it would prove to be very interesting to see how their tour with industrial-strength dynamos Nine Inch Nails went over with the decidedly NIN-fan-heavy crowds. Anyone silly enough to dismiss this group because they don’t feature “the yell” on vocals would be mistakenly. Indeed some of the epics that Mew pens on this giant rocker could easily be distinguished as the soundtrack to the apocalypse (see: two minutes into “Reprise” as a healthy example). “Beach” is extremely approachable with verses of guitar and bass right out of The Cure’s early to mid career. “Hawaii” follows the shorter intro track “Hawaii Dream” with sparse tropical instrumentals peppered into a backdrop of hushing harmonies and gorgeous soundscapes. Mew may be the very first band ever to use a xylophone instead of a synth effect within their vocoded vocal effects. “Vaccine” is bubbly and smart with a danceable dream popsicle seemingly licked and nibbled from the magical land of Candyland. Sugary vocals traverse the majority of the album with off-kilter English language lyrics that while written in my native tongue, seem foreign and exotic with romantic and tantalizing awesomeness. In addition to the main vocals, there are children choirs and brief other vocal noises and samples mixed expertly with piano and keyboard.

Folks this is the most important Album of the Year, yes capitalized because it should win that award from everyone giving it out in 2009. Note: if you purchase the album on iTunes, you can grab up the three b-sides, “Owl”, “Start”, and “Swimmer’s Chant”.