Manchester five-piece, Mewn’s construction site of song, precisely and elaborately fixing up a framework of prose and elongated pop, summarising the anxiety, longing, loss and resolution of what it is to have a human heart, reveals a new tower in the form their latest EP – Ask Me Now - OUT TODAY on Modern Sky. With the release of final track, Fake Retreat, the band commits their listeners to a breathtaking tightrope walk over voids of inky futility whilst holding on tight to hope.
Writing in the ornate, inner-city virtuosity of Durutti Column and Portishead, whilst linking arms with the parlour-room poetry of Pulp and The Smiths, Mewn are of and outside the city from which they absorb frequent sombre, dark winter-grey moods and more modern, neon-imbued creative sensibilities. Taking reviewers with them on an open road of possibility upon the release of their last single, Ask Me Now, the band’s lineage in looking up to brooding, chamber pop originators such as Perfume Genius and Tindersticks, the curdled beauty in Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds, while looking across to contemporaries, Black Country New Road, wasn’t lost on any listeners.
Committing the entire EP project delicate piece by delicate piece to file in the company of Orielles and King Krule producer/collaborator, Joel Pratchett at Eve Studios in Stockport, Mewn cast their bridge over the chasm between analogue and digital worlds as readily as the gap between wonder and worry. Fake Retreat, the EP’s second track, is perhaps as good an example as any of the push-and-pull dynamics that keep Mewn aloft as one of the UK’s most interesting, still-emerging bands.
Pianist and co-songwriter, Matt Protz says: “We were due to record in a few weeks we had to come up with something. I started playing some chords on the piano and Daniel started playing a Latin-style drum beat he’d had for a while and very quickly we had a song. The start is perhaps reminiscent of Fat White Family’s ‘Surfs Up’ with its combination of darkness and rhythm, but as the song builds it becomes increasingly melodic, breaking into a stadium sized ending that draws on acts like Arcade Fire and Bruce Springsteen.”
Marking the release of the EP, their third following the 2021 release of their debut Landscapes EP and 2022’s Such As This EP, the band – made up of Daniel Bluer (lead vocals, guitar) alongside Rachel Bell (guitar, backing vocals), Protz (keys), Daniel Cowman (drums) and Tom Allen (bass) – have offered listeners further track-by-track insight into the collection’s songs.
In introducing the full, four-track collection, Bluer adds: “We have seen the EP stage of our career as a chance to develop our sonic and emotional range, whilst always taking inspiration from the clarity and the precision of the pop song. We are never stationary; we have and will continue to evolve and get down to the essence of what we are trying to make.”
Track 1: More Shallow
Protz explains: “Whilst the other songs on the EP have pianos and string arrangements, ‘More Shallow’ is more synth driven. The verse took inspiration from The Killing Moon, both the Bunnymen original and the Pavement cover, but in typical Mewn fashion the darkness doesn’t endure and a bright, major chorus breaks out.”
Track 3: Ask Me Now
Protz says: “We have always been interested in longer form songs that go beyond the seven-minute mark. It starts in subdued fashion with melancholy piano chords and withheld vocals with the intention of leaving space and creating an atmosphere, taking large influence from Radiohead. Very quickly it all kicks in with a far greater nod now to Berlin era Bowie, as the rhythm section creates a groove with guitar being played by a screwdriver floating around on top. The aim was to create a really powerful energy and huge sound, with Arcade Fire, Phil Spector and Father John Misty being undeniable influences.”
Track 4: All The Happiness
Protz says: “’All The Happiness’ drew inspiration from some of the current crop of experimental rock bands like Black Country New Road which inspired the eery intro, but this then broke into quite a big indie chorus that reminded us of bands like Pulp. As we played it more, we gave it a fairly disco feel so the end result is a pop song that combines many different influences and atmospheres that we thought was quite interesting.”