(from CWSY#6, August '01) / home / reviews index
Mogwai - 'Rock Action'
(Southpaw)
H'ray, everyone's favourite outspoken art-punks have returned - with
the same political bite (or bark) as before, but with slower-paced songs,
drenched in strings, with a lavish-but-odd sleeve, and with the introduction
of a new vocal which is occasionally flat. It's Mogwai's version of
'This Is My Truth Tell Me Yours'! And like the Manics' overwrought fifth
album, M'gwai's third prop is by turns oppressive, disappointing and
very uplifting.
It starts with the sound of machines getting up in the morning, vocoders burping over breakfast, and ends with a muffled bedtime waltz. But that doesn't mean it shows all Mogwai are capable of. After 'Sine Wave' scarily demonstrates the boast "we've spent a lot of money making it sound hissy", 'Take Me Somewhere Nice' follows up in sumptuous stringed style and with -ooh!- great lyrics; but Stuart's breathy, embarrassed delivery sits uncomfortably with the newly pristine music. A kind comparison would be his fan Michael Stipe, whose shy singing led to a debut christened 'Murmur' and who, of course, never looked back to recording in the bedroom once his li'l band REM made it big. But when Mogwai have fans like that and can call on Gruff Super Furry to guest on 'Dial: Revenge', a song uncomfortably alien elsewhere but at home here with the album's sombre mood, I wonder why they didn't get another friend to sing such fine lines about spaceships over Glasgow.
Mogwai's massive album midpoint is 'You Don't Know Jesus'. Do they know Jesus, then? They're known to Fear Satan. It's always said that the Devil has the best tunes… so I presume they're not on good terms with the man below. He probably complains about the noise. Because this track is impressively immense, if not quite immensely impressive, basically their 'Kappa' x 2, with 'Robot Chant' being 'Stereodee' ¸ 10. A short burst of noise, it's the flipside to '0 1 Sleep': a short burst of quiet.
But the standout track is '2 Rights Make 1 Wrong', a simple chiming guitar quickly calling up an army of horns, strings and -eek!- a banjo, coming up, coming down with skittering 'lectronic beats courtesy Leeds duo the Remote Viewer. And gurglingly vocoder'd vox from Gruff, Snow Patrol and even those beachboysesk boys Astrid. With material like that, the formula for results like this should be '2 Wrongs Make 1 Right'.
'Secret Pint' is an uneasy closer such as you'd find on old Mercury Rev albums, as if spooked out by what's gone before - 'Very Sleepy Rivers' with less unbalanced but less loud vocals. It starts with a splendidly slow-mo cymbal crash sound, and I'd prefer it if this went on throughout besides the muffled drum and piano. I guess you can't have it all - but all this album is 8 tracks and only 6 are proper pieces, rather than mere sketches. 'Action'? It's like 'Speed' set on a slow-mo Skoda, yet half the length of the real movie. But it does 'Rock'. '2 Rights..' is up there with 'Helicon 1' and 'Fear Satan' with 'Dial:' close behind, and 'Take Me..' deserves patience. Mogwai must still be given credit for not only moving on from what bands have done before them, but for moving on from what they themselves have done before.
Unlike their old mates the Manics, mostly. Although Mogwai have done another 'This Is My Truth' by bringing out with the album the news of a forthcoming collaboration thought laughably unlikely by fans; Chino Moreno, however, less likely than Sophie Ellis-Bextor to follow it up with an Ibeefa hit. Expect Mogwai to announce a return to their fuzzy roots yet release a Northern Soul pastiche anytime soon. Rock on!
