Mogwai
Every Country's Son
Rock Action
ALTHOUGH the band's work with and for other art forms, including – but not limited to – film and TV, has been superb, have Glasgow's post-rock gods gone as far as they can with the album format? It can take a while to get to know a Mogwai album, and three years on from Rave Tapes that set now looks, as Michael Marra suggested of Fort William, "ultimately disappointing". Which makes Hardcore Will Never Die, But You Will (from 2011 and shortlisted for the inaugural Scottish Album of the Year Award in 2012) their last essential statement. Sad to say, Every Country's Son, which reunites them with the producer of 1999's Come On Die Young and 2001's Rock Action Dave Fridmann and was recorded in NYC, does not stand-up to the comparison.
It may be wrong to pigeonhole people, or groups, but the sub-New Order dancefloor fluff of Party in the Dark is really not what folk go to Mogwai for, and the whole set lacks oomph,. And if there is one thing you want, and expect, from Mogwai, it is a bit of oomph. After far too much noodling, it is only on the penultimate
track, entitled Old Poisons appropriately, that you even notice drummer Martin Bulloch. Something wrong there, surely.
Keith Bruce
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