Mew And The Glass Handed Kites

Details of the new Mew album have just been confirmed. Thankfully the band have bowed to the nearly universal negative reaction to the album's working title, Saviours of Jazz Ballet, and decided instead to call it Mew and the Glass Handed Kites, which I like much more. The tracklisting of the album also sounds promising:

01. Circuitry Of The Wolf
02. Chinaberry Tree
03. Why Are You Looking Grave
04. Fox Club
05. Apocalypso
06. Special
07. The Zookeeper’s Boy
08. A Dark Design
09. Saviours Of Jazz Ballet (Fear Me December)
10. An Envoy To The Open Fields
11. Small Ambulance
12. The Seething Rain Weeps For You (Uda Pruda)
13. White Lips Kissed
14. Louise Louisa

The full album is released on September 12. The first single, Apocalypso, is already the most played song on leading tastemaker station DR Barometer (ahead of new tracks by The Arcade Fire and Spoon), and is available now as a digital download on iTunes and other online services. The song will also be released on July 18 as a limited 7" vinyl.

Still no word of U.S. tour or release plans, but the band does have four U.K. shows scheduled for July:

July 25 - London ICA (020 7930 3647, £9)
July 26 - Manchester Academy (0161 832 1111, £8)
July 27 - Nottingham Rescue Rooms (0115 958 8484, £8)
July 28 - Glasgow ABC (0870 903 3444, £8.50)

Meanwhile, the band just finished a short tour of Scandinavia in support of R.E.M. Michael Stipe apparently first saw Mew play at their now legendary show at the Mercury Lounge two years ago and was appropriately impressed. As he put it: "They are not just good. They are.... AWESOME!!"