Ooohhh shit! A new Mogwai album already? This one crept up on me like Jack the Ripper in ballet shoes. I could not be happier, for Stuart Braithwaite and the boys are still refusing to stop making some of the most immersing and beautiful music around. On the face of it, it could be whimsically suggested that Mogwai aren't doing anything particularly new here. There's still a seemingly infinite and breathtaking array of layers introduced subtly throughout these songs, culminating in vast soundscapes so mentally consuming, they'll have your spinal fluid flowing backwards. The Tracks still have amusing names at times, (see: "I'm Jim Morrison, I'm dead"). They're still never shorter than 4 minutes. And they're still the most evocative and psyche-fuckingly brilliant examples of post-rock you're likely to hear in the year (or decade)that this record is released.
Don't get me wrong, I've always agreed that post-rock isn't for everyone. Admittedly it sounds as if it may be crap, given a smattering of nu-this and post-that dysentery riddled sub-genres fabricated by any and all idiots who want to make up their own, popping up everywhere you look these days. But if this record doesn't bring in at least a small amount more fans into this genre, I'll start to worry about the human race a whole lot more.
Tracks like "I Love You, I'm Going To Burn Down Your School" bring you racing back to the masterful explosions of the Glaswegian's yesteryear monsters like "Ratts Of The Capital" or "Mogwai Fear Satan" - Thus cold sweats abound, and that spine-chilling feeling you've just seen the ghost of Hitler (am I alone on that one?). Yet spritely sounding numbers like "The Sun Smells Too Loud", warm your mis-beating heart and have me imagining that this band would even be capable of pop music, dare i say it. Hawks retains all of the moody and atmospheric characteristics of Mogwai's best outings and ties them together in what could be the most wonderfully complete and consistent album to date.
The troughs are lower and darker than ever, yet the peaks more destructive and thunderously fierce. Find the loudest stereo you can, sit down in front of it and blast this record into the furthest reaches of your brain lest you never have the unrivalled fortune of hearing it again.
(And its got a really badass picture of an eagle staring into space on the front)
FOUR-AND-A-HALF-STARS
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