Down in my hole, listening to Rave Tapes again and again, all I can think is this: if they ever make another Tron movie, Remurdered makes the case it should be Mogwai doing the score rather than Daft Punk. Electronic, menacing and rocking, it was everything that Daft Punk score should have been. Whatever the case, Rave Tapes is an excellent album of concise Mogwai compositions that are evocative and moving.
There seems to be a freewheeling thesaurus of cliches to describe Mogwai's music that writers use so I'm going to try and avoid them. Mogwai albums are stories that you create so in essence my analysis is mute. Dreary throw backs complaining they want another Like Herod will be disappointed but the album thrives on its conciseness - the band don't need ten minutes to convey a melody or an idea. The only real throwaway is the Satan baiting Repelish, a great track ruined by a spoken word recording played over the top (they've done this before and better - IGGY!). But everything else is affecting and bracing: you will find salvation in tracks like Blues Hour and The Lord Is Out of Control. You will be dragged under by Heard About Your Last Night and There is No Medicine for Regret. If anything the album gets better as it goes along. To be honest, there is a dud on here but I struggle to think of a bad Mogwai song.
If you've never liked Mogwai, there's nothing for you here and even if you did, familiarity may make you dismissive. Don't be. This is an album for immersion and multiple listens - get to it.
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I totally agree, this was a real surprise on first listen. The voice over track does sort of take you out of the flow compared to the rest.
ReplyDeleteRemurdered is like a hybrid of Mogwai and Trans Am. Mog-Am?
ReplyDeleteSo excited to be excited by Mogwai again. Never stopped liking them, but just couldn't be bothered......seemed a lot of same-same stuff. Which kind of takes away the impact and poetics of their music a bit (for me). Frustrating because I can see it's there in each release, but it all seemed to blur into one big Mogwai blob of epic too-much proportions. Am really excited to hear they've pushed on in a slightly new way, and not just cranking out the same old.
But yeah, Remurdered officially goes into tracks that I don't care if I go deaf from listening too loudly on my headphones.