Mogwai - The Hawk is Howling

Mogwai have been called plenty of things over the years: Post-Rock, Psychedelic, Instrumentalist, Experimental. I'm not really sure what any of these things mean but it seems to me that they are some combination of all of the above. Their newest offering, The Hawk is Howling, is certainly evidence that they have lost none of the magic that has led to the huge cult following that Glasgow outfit enjoy. This fully instrumental album (see above genre-dropping) starts off in subtle and colourful mood with the inappropriately named I'm Jim Morrisson, I'm Dead, which invokes memories of Apparat and Ulrich Schnauss. Things take a darker twist, in a direction I would associate more with Mogwai, as the epic, full and angry sound of Batcat takes over, only for us to be taken back to earth as the subtle xylophones and slow drums of Daphne and The Brain, Local Authority and Kings Meadow bring the pace right down. The upbeat elements of the album are on full show in The Sun Smells too Loud, which dissects the aforementioned triplet. Potentially the highlight (apart from the opener) for me is the long drawn-out build up, and in-character sinister dark chords of "I Love You, I'm Going to Blow up Your School", which does literally blow up 6 and a half minutes in, to give us that epic My Bloody Valentine-esque room-filling loudness that threatened to take over in Batcat. From this crescendo the album finishes out in a much more lamenting, introspective style with the funereal Scotland's Shame, Thank You Space Expert, and The Precipice.

This intensely personal album does take the listener on a journey of sorts. The dark overtones, surely inspired by the inner-city Glaswegian landscape from which Mogwai are known to take inspiration, are interspersed with genuinely bright pepperings of positivity and some awe-inspiring epic climaxes which really does make this a tour-de-force of what Mogwai are all about. Highly recommended.


Here's a video of them performing I'm Jim Morrisson, I'm dead. Unbelievable track.