Mum

Two years (almost to the day) after their previous release, Iceland's eccentric pop maestros MÚM have returned with their fifth studio album, Sing Along To Songs You Don't Know. Sing Along... recalls sand running through fingers or ripples on a lake; it's an ode to the light in its different shapes, from a fading bulb to the blinding sun. Alternately sunny and melancholy, Sing Along... flows like the tides: now ebullient, now brooding, cacophony resolving into tight melody. For Sing Along..., Múm work with their trademark variegated instrumental palette, this time including a lightly prepared piano, hammered dulcimer, a string quartet, marimbas, guitars, ukuleles--and in the background of a few tracks, a parent's pet parakeet singing along with the piano.