18.) Hardcore Will Never Die But You Will - Mogwai (Top 20 Albums of 2011)

Hardcore Will Never Die But You Will / Earth Division EP

Mogwai

Sub Pop Records.

Original SCQ Review.

Whether or not Hardcore Will Never Die But You Will ever gets recognized as one the Scottish veterans’ best albums is for hindsight to decide, but there’s a certain satisfaction in recognizing that Mogwai’s seventh literally corrects every issue I had with 2008’s The Hawk Is Howling. The opulent variety at hand, which sees the band flex from fuzzed-out stompers (‘Rano Pano’) and shimmery balladry (‘Death Rays’) to Krautrock electro (‘Mexican Grand Prix’), and bolder production give Hardcore… a showy side that in every way trumps its sludgy predecessor.

Hardly a group to rest long on their laurels, Mogwai have already moved on with a brief EP of glitch and piano focused fare called Earth Division. Listening to the haunting, acoustic ‘Hound Of Winter’ and stately sprawl of ‘Does This Always Happen?’ in December – nearly a year after Hardcore… first dropped – has reaffirmed Mogwai’s importance to SCQ in 2011. These two releases present divergent ends of a band reinvigorated.

Hardcore Will Never Die, But You Will - Mogwai

Hardcore Will Never Die, But You Will

Mogwai
Sub Pop Records.

SCQ Rating: 80%

Nearly two and a half years on, I still find myself trying to claw at what The Hawk Is Howling really was. An engorged assortment of post-rock tenets spring to mind, treading old reflexes at rare highlights (‘I’m Jim Morrison, I’m Dead’, ‘King’s Meadow’) but submerged in crotchety, witless songwriting for the most part. Yes, Mogwai’s 2008 epic occupied a lot of space on disc but for the same reason nobody bothers manufacturing oversized coasters, it was difficult to justify its ten songs’ ample elbow-room.

By reducing its scope, Hardcore Will Never Die, But You Will retraces the band’s most rewarding challenge: tailoring their trademarked bouts of fury to compositions not necessarily designed for crescendo-hammering. Of course, to reach even that stage, the Scottish veterans required material with classical nuances and subtlety. That’s probably where The Hawk Is Howling lost its bite; by arming their structures with the sustenance to burden so many recurrent sonic blasts, Mogwai abandoned their elegance - the snap-shift beneath those dichotomies. Mr. Beast empowered itself by that standard, compelling each thoughtful whim to its natural peak or valley without arguing such a primitive consideration as volume, and this latest LP follows a similar mindset.

With that 2006 about-face as its closest relation, Hardcore... ventures back to small steps outside of a comfort zone that allows the occasional curveball. Showcasing the emotive weight Mogwai have been refining since Rock Action are tracks like ‘Death Rays’ and ‘Letters To the Metro’, which amble on the graces of their respectively rich backbones with a wide array of keys and, on the former in particular, a blast of organ and guitar. As ever, those pockets of reflective songwriting guide our eardrums back from the brink of annihilation, away from the perpetual riff of ‘Rano Pano’’s tempered ferocity and ‘Too Raging To Cheers’ climactic breakdown. Both of Mogwai’s well-trodden ends are hinted at in ‘White Noise’, with its romanced cloak of percolating arpeggios reaching skyward despite some trouble-making, dissonant plates shifting beneath.

Song titles aside, that last paragraph encapsulates the back-and-forth, restrained-then-epic trajectory of just about every Mogwai release, which is why Hardcore…’s odd moments deserve due mention. Some of these tracks sound decidedly un-Mogwai-ish; the vocoder-use in ‘George Square Thatcher Death Party’ is only surprising because of its traditional verse-chorus layout, while ‘Mexican Grand Prix’, with robot-pitched vocal-snippets and krautrock rhythms, demonstrates the band’s continued maturity (yes, in spite of them calling a song ‘How To Be a Werewolf’).

Acquired tastes, perhaps, but Hardcore…’s demands are easy to adjust to, with even the most college-rock-ready moment (‘San Pedro’) fitting into the record’s mood after a few spins. As with Mr. Beast or Happy Songs For Happy People before that, this Sub Pop debut reaffirms Mogwai’s reputation as the most consistent and magnetic pillar in post-rock’s aging castle.

MOGWAI - Death Rays by Pias France

34. Happy Songs For Happy People – Mogwai (2003)

Mogwai’s catalog is something to envy. The Scottish outfit needn’t commit to drastic changes on their songwriting, as it makes up the strong backbone to post-rock as a whole, so each album is inevitably distinguished by cosmetic differences. Young Team was raw, Come On Die Young was quieter, Rock Action carried an increasingly polished veneer and Happy Songs for Happy People went borderline electronic. And equipped with these softer, sonic lens, Mogwai transcended new ground, giving ‘Moses? I Amn’t’ and ‘Kids Will Be Skeletons’ an added cinematic touch.

Like I said, though, these are aesthetic changes; Happy Songs for Happy People also prizes some of the band’s best work. If ‘Hunted By a Freak’ isn’t a convincing candidate for Mogwai’s greatest tunes, ‘Stop Coming To My House’ is the shoe-in ringer (without doubt, one of my most played songs of the decade). Let’s hope they reach these heights again someday…

The Hawk is Howling - Mogwai

The Hawk is Howling

Mogwai
Matador Records.

SCQ Rating: 66%

Hype has never been good for Mogwai. Case in point: Mr. Beast, which was declared a masterpiece (by the band's management) before its release to middling reviews. Beyond its failure to live up to such a blistering, massive title, what was immediately evident with Mr. Beast and roundly panned was that the Scottish post-rock outfit was striving to compress Young Team-era explosions and sighs into four-minute intervals. That this exercise in economic songwriting succeeded more often than not is hardly the headline of choice for critics and fans who, ten years on, remain steadfast in their expectations of a Young Team II. The shadow of that debut is looming heavy on The Hawk is Howling, not only with Young Team's remaster issued mere months ago, but finding its producer, Andy Miller, at the helm for the first time since.

So Mogwai-followers the world over were likely surprised to read early reviews citing The Hawk is Howling as Happy Songs for Happy People II; the sequel to an album many viewed as Young Team's cousin, maybe three times removed. I can do one better. Consider the new record under this ancestral example: that at nearly sixty-five minutes and entirely instrumental, The Hawk is Howling is the great-grandfather of Mogwai's - and post-rock's - catalog. It's dense and brooding, it's sluggish yet occasionally volatile; like a man well past his prime, Mogwai's sixth album doesn't have much to say (senile song titles aside). Where Rock Action graced effortlessly between metal assaults and whispered balladry, or Happy Songs for Happy People proved itself independent of post-rock cliches, these ten songs reflect no dire state-of-the-union but, perhaps, Mogwai's least ambitious recording to date.

Even so, we're talking about Mogwai, the band accountable for a sound, distinctive yet ethereal, that no band could replicate without being declared rip-off artists. 'I'm Jim Morrison, I'm Dead' sets the tone with some lonely guitar and 'Auto-Rock'-esque piano that moves from haunting to epic at its own pace. With the gripping 'Batcat' hot on its heels, The Hawk is Howling, despite having a one-two punch insanely comparable to Mr. Beast's, looks posed to be Mogwai's next-best album.

Then... well, nothing really happens. There's no turning-point where momentum is suddenly dropped or the band reaches in vain for new direction. To make this lacking harder to translate, the record is surprisingly comprehensive, moving within a tight clan of moods with only 'The Sun Smells Too Loud' - an upbeat, good-vibe tune - standing out. It's one of the few attention-grabbing moments on record, and perhaps the keynote signifier of what's wrong here: production. Although headphones certainly help, The Hawk is Howling is a muddled affair, full of guitar squalls, organs and effects that, instead of weaving and interacting, sound like slabs of compressed noise. For every evocative track (the shimmering twilight to 'Kings Meadow', the gorgeous promenade of 'Thank You Space Expert'), there's a prolonged excursion into nowhere special ('I Love You, I'm Going to Blow Up Your School', 'Scotland's Shame') that, to Miller's credit, would still suffer from boring compositions regardless of an absentee producer. Why 'The Sun Smells Too Loud' might be a lantern for this critic's understanding lies not only in its ear-catching performance, but in the liner notes which state this as the only song recorded at their Castle of Doom studios, by longtime producer Tony Doogan. That's a difficult coincidence to rule out when the rest of the record, under Miller's care, sounds so washed-out.

Had Mogwai bought into those post-rock junkies still spinning Young Team and recycled that same quiet-loud formula instead of The Hawk is Howling's ruminative approach, they would be ushering in their career's second phase; that of a has-been act, content in the glory of past achievements. Instead, we hear the latest in a decade's worth of slow progressions - first, minimal dirges and electronic atmospheres, and now, a raw compromise of metal immensity and indie-romantic flexibility. Yes, Mogwai are still shifting in small artistic shuffles, but for the first time, they're letting old habits run the show. Long has post-rock been disparaged over its tired template, with a new Mogwai album managing to instill fresh blood into the discussion. Let The Hawk is Howling be a flood warning for our flagship band; these boys are treading water.

Mr. Beast - Mogwai (SCQ Spring 2008)

Mr. Beast

Mogwai
Matador Records.

SCQ Rating: 82%

As if Mogwai didn’t have enough pressure on them to consistently one-up their last record and you know, keep the whole post-rock genre respectable, manager Alan McGee had to open his big mouth. If the music-press weren’t already salivating over the Glasgow band’s impending follow-up to 2003’s Happy Music for Happy People, McGee offered that Mr. Beast is ‘as good as Loveless, or better’. Now people can compare themselves to My Bloody Valentine all they like, but when a manager in the business who actually worked on Loveless makes that comparison, the gloves are off. That comment was both an incredible piece of press for the band’s upcoming album and a backlash waiting to happen.

As a dark-horse competitor against Loveless, Mr. Beast loses, but as the most recent Mogwai record, it’s an impressive addition to their discography. Early interviews suggested that Mr. Beast was a return to the thrashing days of Young Team, which is sporadically evident in the metal of ‘Glasgow Mega-snake’ and ‘We’re No Here’. But this new effort has more in common with its predecessor, the textured and atmospheric Happy Music for Happy People; both consist of beautifully arranged minor masterpieces, the main distinguishing factor between them is volume. Where the former thrived off its lush serenity, Mr. Beast is less patient, more moody. Most songs are concluded within four and a half minutes (swift by Mogwai standards) and the album seems to teeter between wildly disparaging emotions. For every ‘Acid Food’, a relaxed piece of pastoral rock, there’s a ‘Travel is Dangerous’ waiting to explode nearby. The sequencing, beyond the album’s weak close, balances these moods and compliments most of the material.

Besides the noteworthy single ‘Friend of the Night’, the soft piano-led ‘Emergency Trap’ is the stand-out here, an instrumental ode that proves just how far Mogwai’s songwriting has come since Young Team’s quiet/loud dynamics. Why the band attempted to go back to their roots when they’ve evolved so much is a mystery to me, but Mr. Beast shows great potential that is worth striving for despite the occasional misstep.