They may look like the refugees of an inept heavy metal act but Mew are an excellent Danish band whose fine balance of musical ambition and emotional conviction made their fourth album one of the surprise highlights of 2005. Mew generally keep their songs loud and heavy, bolstered by an equally huge production, but the epic noise is tempered by Jonas Bjerre's almost childlike vocals which swoop and glide in tandem with the cavalcade of guitars and drums. In many ways they are as bombastic as Queen with the melodic hooks being particulary dramatic on outstanding cuts 'Why Are You Looking Grave?', 'Apocalypso' and 'An Envoy To The Open Fields'. The guitars grind ferociously on 'A Dark Design' and there are the obligatory madcap lyrics so often associated with Scandinavian music ("Tall Just like a giraffe, you have to climb to find its head"). Just when you think they're going to end with a lung-busting finale, though, the final two songs offer a pleasing vulnerability and the final words are, surprisingly, "Don't want to be alone". A subtle end to a real sugar rush of a record.