Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Album Review: Mogwai – Rock Action


This is probably one of Mogwai’s more accessible albums, as it’s less noisy and heavy than their previous albums. Released in 2001, it begins with the slightly scratchy Sine Wave before going into the epic Take Me Somewhere Nice. This song incorporates keyboards into Mogwai’s bass-heavy sound. It features vocals by David Pajo (Slint/Papa M) which work well with some beautiful music played by Stuart Braithwaite and co. I can almost feel the snow fall.

After the short interlude, O I Sleep we get another brooding song, Dial: Revenge which hangs on a simple sounding acoustic guitar figure before the keyboards come in. It features vocals sung in Welsh by Gruff Rhys of Super Furry Animals. You Don’t Know Jesus runs to 8 minutes and is more abrasive sounding. The band, who are pretty restrained elsewhere on this album, let loose with heavy guitars and crashing cymbals. Two Rights Make One Wrong is the longest song here at nine and a half minutes, starting out with jangly guitar but building up with guitars, strident drums, keyboards, electronics, wordless vocals before finishing off with banjo. It shouldn’t work but surprisingly it does. The final track Secret Pint is a little anti-climactic, a sparser, piano-led track with more gentle vocals.

A good entry point for checking out this band’s guitar-effect heavy post-rock.

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