What are the chances that the new Mogwai album - The Hawk Is Howling - will be good?

oh gawd

i remember the giddy anticipation when i went out to get mr beast on the day of its release

and the fact i've never thought of mogwai as one of my very favourite bands since that day

i'd say there's a 1 in 5 chance it's as good as the first four

(25 is the good obv.)

63% for a given value of good

I'm always hopeful.

the only thing that i know for sure that the live tour for the album will again increase the sales of ear plugs

Cue predictable "still going?" response.

my prediction is that it will start quietly and get louder. then again i haven't listened to nything by mogwai since about 2001, but i did see explosions in the sky the other week which is practically the same thing.

based on the new tracks debuted at the recent tramway gig, it will both a) start pretty loud and get louder, and b) be considerably better than mr beast.

explosions in the sky think they're the same as mogwai, but they are in truth a vastly inferior copy.

I hope this is more 'Zidane' than 'Mr Beast' although I enjoyed them both and suspect it will be more like the other way around.

i liked that quiet record they made, happy songs for happy people. no-one else seemed to. but it was really nice, like they'd ended up somewhere really different from where they started, doing minimal slightly orchestral drone-y stuff. and then because no-one liked it they went back to tired loud stuff with that guy playing whirry noises on top. so i guess it'll be like that; guitar noise with whirry noises LIKE THE PEOPLE WANT.

the tracklisting looks pretty great, though.

HSFHP was a superb record and it actually had a fair few noisy bits. They were done very tastefully and effectively, though, and there was a lot of experimentation (and some cracking tunes) to complement it. Mr Beast was something they could have shat out in their sleep.

first single 'batcat' is around, and it shares a lot of the same DNA as 'glasgow megasnake' and 'we're no here'. it's recorded well, and all very muscly and intense. probably better than both of those, and probably would make more sense in the context of the album. hard to tell really. much rather hear them trying something different than another pale clone of what they've done before, but am not sure what to make of it yet...

there was a lot of experimentation (and some cracking tunes) to complement it. Mr Beast was something they could have shat out in their sleep.

yeh, for sure. i think i'd quite liked it and then heard the familiar strains of moses i amn't in the consequences of love and went back to it - it seems a really unpopular lp to me, but i don't know if that's just because everyone goes to it expecting something else. i'm curious to hear the roky one, anyway.

Louis OTM, Happy Songs was a fantastic record, maybe my favorite they've done. Mr Beast has its moments -- I still think "Friend of the Night" is one of the best tracks they've done -- but was on the whole much weaker.

haven't listened to mr beast since it came out, i feel like I have enough mogwai albums, but that doesn't mean I wouldn't give this a listen; agreed that happy songs was really good. rock action is still my favorite though.

also, I think explosions started off as a mogwai copy but they are very different now, to me.

Dreary me. Not particularly impressive on first listen. I can't really remember Mr. Beast enough to tell whether it's better or worse.

at the time i thought Mr Beast was pretty good though, i recall :(

"Thank You Space Expert" is awesome. The rest...not so sure.

I love it! It's the Zidane sound with Mogwai influences (and not the other way round) - and I loved that Zidane thing, so i'm not complaining.

I'd say mr. trifle got his wish, see upthread

Intrigued to hear this. Enjoyed the Eno-gone-heavy track that leaked a little while ago.

Did go back and relisten to most of their catalogue recently, though, and they just seemed very... flat, and one-dimensional, for the main part.

Dreary me. Not particularly impressive on first listen.

for me, they haven't been a 'first listen' band since young team, and I don't necessarily mean that as a criticism. their stuff tends to creep up on me, and the new one's no exception. yes, a bit dreary on first listen (with the exception of 'batcat') but it's turned out to be a thing of beauty...once I got to grips with the beautifully restrained crescendo in 'I'm jim morrison', the rest fell into place.

it's taken me a long time to get past my expectations of mogwai based on their early stuff. they haven't made what I would have previously termed a characteristically mogwai record since the last couple of tracks on CODY, or arguably 'my father my king'. the mogwai in my head was different to the one still making records. letting go of that allowed me to finally, properly listen to them, and it turns out they've been making great records while my attention has been distracted by the pounding they gave my ears at the astoria in 1998.

it is curious though, how tracks 1, 2 and 10 largely follow the template of the same-numbered tracks on mr beast. sometimes it feels like a much more successful remake of the previous album.

More intrigued by the new Stuart Braithwaite/Aidan Moffat band to be honest.

"Danphe & the Brain" is far away my favorite track on this, and it kind of surprises me it hasn't received a mention in a single review I've read. It has one of those melodies (like "2 Wrongs" and "Yes! I Am a Long Way From Home") that's so good I want a quiet/loud crescendo. I assume the song's ignored, maybe justifiably so, because it's paint-by-numbers Mogwai, but when they do it this well I'm still a total sucker for their sound.

"Kids Will Be Skeletons" was/is far away my favourite track on HSFHP and it barely got a mention from the reviewers too!

The best song on Happy Songs was the first track. It was also the best song they played at ATP, out of the four I watched. The two new songs did nothing for me, sounded like Mogwai by numbers. That track from Happy Songs (I forget the name) was great though, and "Friend of the Night" was also very good. Left after that, probably missed a killer "Like Herod," but when is "Like Herod" not killer?

Anyway, I'll pick up this new album in the used bin later this year. I'm mildly curious, but in no rush to hear it.

"I'm Jim Morrison, I'm Dead" and "Danphe And The Brain" are up there with Mogwai's best work, and this is for the most part an incalculable improvement on the previous record.

In fact "I'm Jim Morrison, I'm Dead" is one of Mogwai's best songs period.

lj you are like the anti-me.

i am bizarro lou jag

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/1/1d/ClassicBizarro.PNG

wha

p.s. most of this album is actually pretty boring on repeat listen, but the first track is just so good

It's grown on me a lot with repeated listens.

xposts. was just meaning that basically i dislike almost everything you like, and then when we share a taste, i.e. the 'gwai, we have almost diametrically opposed ideas on said taste.

xpost. Alex, you fanboy!

Alex is a total fanboy!

OK, Jim, I'll lay it out: my favourite two Gwai albums are Rock Action first, HSFHP second. I trust you dig the first two more...

(I still much like the first two)

Live the songs from the 1st 2 albums are better, but I wouldnt argue against Rock Action being the best album.

Yeah, definitely take a pinch of fanboy salt with whatever I say about Moggers.

Did Simon ever do a mogwai albums poll?

Best Mogwai songs: Kids Will Be Skeletons, 2 Rights Make 1 Wrong, Like Herod (Government Commissions version, the LP version is pretty tame tbh), Ex-Cowboy, Yes! I Am A Long Way From Home, Ratts Of The Capital, CODY, Take Me Somewhere Nice, You Don't Know Jesus, I'm Jim Morrison, I'm Dead, and Tracy

pretty much in that order, altho IJM,ID will doubtless rise.

Did Simon ever do a mogwai albums poll?

Whut, me? No: I'm with John Doran on this one. For such a mighty fucking band, they have never made an album that lives up to what they're capable of. Their best set of songs is probably Rock Action, but they've retooled all of them so hard since then that it just sounds weedy to listen to. THIH has grown on me but it's a long, long way from perfect.

So: no albums poll until they release the album they're capable of.

Their past two albums at least have been a bit too controlled, a bit too calculated and predictable, and a bit too eager to stick to one level of operation. Rock Action and HSFHP were comparatively all over the place.

(in a really exciting, creative way)

Have you seen them live, Louis?

Also: and a bit too eager to stick to one level of operation ... yeh, apart from The Sun Smells Too Loud, which I hoped would pave the way for all manner of unexpected synthesised shenanigans but, umm, didn't. I'd love nothing more than for Mogwai to say, right, fuck the "dynamic", let's just dick about here and have some fun. But they do seem beholden to some form of traditional sound ethic now.

Unbelievably enough, I haven't. I've seen almost all my favourite bands but Mogwai were always slightly too sold-out or expensive (or not in a convenient location). Excuses I know. One day.

The drums especially are disappointing these days. There's a fair bit going on with guitar sound and synth burble, but the rhythm section is just *so* staid. IJM,ID overcomes this by being *melodically* unusual for Mogwai (imo) and more importantly plain awesome, but the rest seems to roll into one faintly muted storm of trademarked bluster. Still way better than the last one.

The Sun Smells...is growing on me. The main "guitar" riff is still a little irritating but that's made up for by the song's DNA being genuinely impressive.

i couldn't tell you the name of any individual mogwai song except for 'my father my king' if I had to. this album is like pretty much any other mogwai album. it's fine