Mogwai - Rave Tapes

Mogwai
Rave Tapes
20 January 2014
Rock Action

3 stars out of 5

 

Rave Tapes sees Mogwai moving still further from their post-rock roots. They haven’t quite reached the Klaus Schulz-esque epic bliss-outs they seem to aspire to, terrain explored in miniature form by their peers in the now-defunct Emeralds. Mogwai’s compositions are far too short and too firmly based in the song to really let go and explode like those of Schulz or Tangerine Dream, even though repetitive keyboard riffs are the central focus of Rave Tapes. It’s difficult to accuse Mogwai of repeating past explorations, except that a lot of Rave Tapes sounds, basically, like more of the same. Mogwai concentrate on what they do best – they can’t dance, they can’t (really) sing, they can only do one thing: be Mogwai. And on Rave Tapes they don’t do a half-bad job of it, though one can’t help but hope that next time they’ll do their job a little better.

At about the halfway point of “Remurdered,” Barry Burns unleashes a keyboard riff that would make Schulz stop and listen, yet the next track, “Hexon Bogon,” is classic old-school Mogwai, brimming over with shimmering guitar harmonics and a purposeful chord progression. “Repelish” features a narrated didactic passage expounding a theory that “Stairway to Heaven” contains subliminal messages imploring the listener to worship Satan. (If you open your prayer books to chapter 10 of Mogwai Young Team, you will remember that Mogwai fear Satan.) One of the weaker tracks on the album, “Deesh” feels more like a score to a Hollywood drama (the inspiring, danger-filled montage of the hero preparing himself to face the antagonist, perhaps) than anything else. The most memorable part of the song is Martin Bulloch’s drums, which sound like they were lifted from The Cure’s Pornography.

“Blues Hour,” the album’s only track with real vocals, a slow dirge full of piano and vocals hidden behind layers of reverb, is, like the rest of the album, good but not great. “No Medicine for Regret” makes you want to search IMDB to see what film it’s from. Most of the album feels like a film score, to be honest. This isn’t a bad thing in itself, but it makes the listener feel as if their attention should be focused on something else rather than the music. As a long-time Mogwai fan, I can find two or three tracks on Rave Tapes to add to my regular rotation, but the album as a whole leaves me underwhelmed. The album has no sharp edges, no real intensity, and feels too polished and watered-down. Hopefully Mogwai will be a better Mogwai next time around.

reviewed by Richard Krueger