Mew @ ABC, 5 Nov

Pitchfork may have ridiculously yet somehow quite perfectly summarised Mew as “Queensryche meets Sigur Ros” in times gone by, but No More Stories... – the Danish trio’s latest foray into the more esoteric reaches of should-be stadium rock – assures a pendulum swing away from noodle-haired anti-cool, further toward the experimental otherworldliness of their Scandinavian peers.

Entering to an awkward soul sample that could have been cut by J Dilla, Introducing Palace Players announces the band with an industrial clang which marries well with the thunderous one-two of Circuitry of the Wolf and Chinaberry Tree, an acute reminder of the standard reached by 2005’s And the Glass Handed Kites. With polite but monosyllabic crowd interplay managed by guitarist Bo Madsen, the ever-fey Jonas Bjerre is left to present a dynamic vocal range, by turns rapturous and sombre. Though the sheer bombast of material from Kites – like White Lips Kissed and Saviours of Jazz Ballet – eclipses all else on show tonight, the frozen silhouettes conjure a blissful rock opera. [Dave Kerr]