Summer Make Good

Catching electronica in it’s embryonic state and somehow fusing it together with lush folk stylings, weathered ambience and the slightest - most beautiful - trace of vocals ‘Summer Makes Good’ is a truly breath-taking record.

For fans of Sigur Ros and Mogwai, this is a godsend, but those who feel like those bands just incessantly mine one-chord riffs would do better to stay away. [May 2004, p.96]

This is a strange, disturbing, unsettling, compelling album.

A tender, smouldering album of drifting, rudderless beauty.

The album is much more consistent, more cinematic than anything they have done before.

An amazing accomplishment and a pleasure to listen to.

This is not for all tastes. Slow, broody, experimental.

Summer Make Good blurs the distinctions of digital and analog to the point of opening new categories.

Dreamily exploratory, but rooted in pop. [Apr 2004, p.102]

Does Summer Make Good maintain the peak established by its predecessors? In a word: no. But that doesn’t mean it’s not good, because it is; it’s just not quite as magical as the others.

Clips and clatters, glitchy mechanics and breathy cooing have displaced the beautiful melodies that are Múm's strong suit.

Yes, there are the makings of an ambient symphony... but the more prominent strains of folk instrumentation--accordions, banjos and glockenspiels--suggest to us that maybe it's not all gloom and glum. [#10, p.91]

Their production is still top-notch, and as mentioned above the album still has some great sounds and moments, but it's not quite up to the level that they've done in the past.

Alternating between sounding like a gremlin and sounding like a baby, the vocals don't so much haunt as distract.

Its quietness and moodiness make Summer Make Good Múm's most demanding album, but also, fortunately, a rewarding one too.

Much of it is lovely, but marred somewhat by the whispery sub-Kate Bush vocals of Kristin Valtysdottir. [Apr 2004, p.117]

It doesn't help that it's dominated by Kristin Anna Valtysdottir's vocals, which sound like the coos of a Teletubby. [7 May 2004, p.86]

While Múm's music has always posed a mysterious, melodic invitation to the listener, their latest offering feels flat at times, with very few signposts marking the way and even fewer landmarks inviting one back again.

It's not that Múm have broken a barrier to make their first entirely unpleasant record-- the addition of drums and trumpet do make for some compelling instrumental moments-- but there simply aren't enough exciting or even vaguely interesting moments in each song, and between this scarcity and, Jesus, that voice, Summer Make Good seems an unfortunate addition to 2004's disappointments.