Mew, "And the Glass-Handed Kites"

A week ago, I rolled out of bed, into the car, and the colors had changed. It wasn't autumn yet, but it soon would be. Sometimes around here, for a day or two, the world will pretend it is already the next season to come, like foreshadowing in some novel. The sky is still cloudless, blazing blue, oblivious that below, things are gray golden and softer. The sky will know soon, and follow suit.

Mew was on the stereo, and I realized that their album And the Glass-Handed Kites was one of those autumn albums, and I may start pulling it out every autumn, the way I do Mercury Rev's Other Deserter's Songs and Grandaddy's Sophtware Slump. Some albums fit autumn better than others, with its mix of glowing light and the first hint of darkness. Mew has something of both, with its minor keys, its off-balance guitar work, meandering, unresolved verses flowing into soaring, almost ethereal choruses, impossibly high falsettos, triumphant synthesizers. Things feel urgent, perpetually changing. Their sound is one of juxtaposition, making you feel the dense, difficult ground before they send you flying like one of those black birds wheeling south, their fluttering shadows making the light flash, as their wings hide and reveal the sun behind, hurting your eyes.