Mogwai perfect art with seventh album - review

Mogwai
'Hardcore Will Never Die, But You Will'
(Rock Action Records)

SCOTTISH rock band Mogwai have been startlingly prolific over their near 16-year career, one that sees them clock up a seventh studio album with this release, ‘Hardcore Will Never Die, But You Will’.
The band have rarely, if ever, put a foot wrong, and this, the follow-up to their 2008 opus ‘The Hawk is Howling’ and last year’s superb live CD/DVD ‘Special Moves’, sees the band remain staggeringly original in their output.
A band whose music effectively coined the term ‘post-rock’, the Glasgow-based outfit have nonetheless consistently made a mockery of that simplistic tag, this album no different in its variety, from the click-track based, Battles-esque ‘Mexican Grand Prix’, to the subtle, delicate and soaring ‘How To Be A Werewolf’, to the epic, grandiose and feedback-drenched album closer ‘You’re Lionel Richie’, Mogwai take their so-called ‘post-rock/shoe-gaze’ style and tear up the rulebook, producing an album that is wonderfully inventive and fresh in scope.
Reunited with Paul Savage, producer of the band’s landmark debut album ‘Young Team’, the closing three tracks in particular might be viewed as classic Mogwai, slow-burning and epic, but other parts of the album represent something of a departure for the band, with the Godspeed You! Black Emperor-influenced, piano-based track, ‘Letters to the Metro’ and the heavily distorted, rare vocal track on ‘George Square Thatcher Death Party’.
The album and song titles show this is a band with tongue stuck firmly in cheek, their humour and far-reaching abilities self-evident on what is an expressive, genre-defining and unselfconscious album.
RATING: 4/5

Some random thoughts..

Busy week this week, Size2Shoes on Tuesday (see below), Kyon and Rarely Seen Above Ground on Wednesday, and the rather excellent Belltable Sessions on Thursday. Best one yet? Possibly. I will have pics and some video footage up later.

Listening to a few albums this week:

Doves - Kingdom of Rust (a real grower, some interesting and dark electro beats in the mix)

Red Eskimo - The Grey Death Billow (I'm going to be talking a lot about this album from the Brothers' Delaney (Limerick boys, whoop!) in time, very impressive early impressions - a bit like Midlake meets Sigur Ros/Royksopp/The Shins' bastard children - in a good way - launch in Dolan's Warehouse on Friday May 8)

Passion Pit - Chunk of Change (2008 EP from hotly-tipped American electro outfit, debut album Manners due in May)

...And So I Watch You From Afar (Bizarre post-rock from this interesting Northern Irish outfit, Mogwai-esque I think, on first impressions)

Mogwai - The Hawk is Howling (The hawk certainly is howling on this superb album from the real deal - visceral, mind-blowing, dark and epic all at the same time)

Also seems Delorentos are now not splitting up after all, which is interesting. Seems Ronan Yourell realised what he would be missing out on and came to his senses. Hoping to have an interview with one of the boys in the coming weeks, watch this space.