Mogwai
The Bad Fire
Temporary Residence Ltd.
The road to perdition, it seems, goes through Glasgow, where the title of Mogwai’s latest bonfire of post-rock epiphanies is often used interchangeably for Hell among blue-collar folk. Troubled times followed their lockdown triumph As the Love Continues, carried aloft as the people’s champion in a social media groundswell that catapulted the record to No. 1 on the Official U.K. Albums Chart in 2021. The torment for Mogwai was real.
As the Love Continues was a beautiful, uplifting antidote for despair and uncertainty in the face of a raging global pandemic, but in its aftermath, Mogwai had its own problems — the biggest being the health of keyboardist Barry Burns’ daughter, in recovery from a bone marrow transplant and chemotherapy. Maybe the worst is behind them, but on The Bad Fire, Mogwai brilliantly runs the gamut of emotions, experiencing whole lifetimes of pain and healing within the meaningful minutes of a single track — the synth-fueled ecstasy, vocoded singing, and chaotic, distorted propulsion of “Fanzines Made of Flesh” stirring up a tempest of infectious optimism as the LP’s unforgettable centerpiece. That’s where Burns really unloads, like Prospero, setting off a mind-blowing barrage of lashes, zaps, whirls, and popcorn sounds with disorienting glee that’s more of a life-affirming celebration than an angry tirade.
More serene, “Pale Vegan Hip Pain” — Mogwai’s still fond of red herrings, at least as far as song titles are concerned — is methodical and murky, and the cold dirge “If You Find This World Bad, You Should See Some of the Others” wallows in alien loneliness before a dirty, powerful, blown-out gale whips across its desolate landscape. Take comfort in the warped, shoegazing moodiness and corrosive, driving introspection of a breathtakingly hopeful “18 Volcanoes,” but seek shelter from the blinding blizzard and blustery drama of “Hi Chaos” and its compelling push-pull dynamics. It’s one of the stormiest productions Mogwai’s ever staged, as Stuart Braithwaite still makes violent love to his guitar.
After 30 years of this, Mogwai’s bag of tricks seems bottomless, their careful mapping of aural journeys as meticulous as ever. They have an uncanny ability to deeply touch the heart — mostly without lyrics, simply using lovely chord progressions and complex counter melodies to grab it by the roots. And the feel-good playfulness of a track like “Lion Rumpus,” with its noisy joy and effects-laden euphoria, sees Mogwai taking itself less seriously, although the motoring, otherworldly “God Gets You Back” shows they aren’t letting go of their cinematic sensuality and weighty ambitions. They have arrived at the intersection of New Wave slickness, neo-psychedelia, and dreamy My Bloody Valentine enchantment. Can has taken the wheel, and the prophecy of 1997’s Mogwai Young Team has been fulfilled.
