As The Love Continues

Album review

There's an art to coming up with song titles when you have no lyrics to easily pull from. The Scottish band Mogwai excel at it once again on their tenth studio album. How can you not be curious to hear a cut called "To the Bin My Friend, Tonight We Vacate Earth" or "Supposedly, We Were Nightmares"? They also deliver on the intrigue. There's long been a cinematic— sometimes wide-screen, sometimes almost unbearably claustrophobic and interior—quality to Mogwai's songs, and it's no wonder they've been a favorite of directors looking for a moody score. It's easy to imagine the pummeling drums and dramatic orchestral strings of "Midnight Fit" accompanying a pivotal turning-point scene where a hero figures things out in the rain; "Dry Fantasy," with its emotive keys and slow-build cymbals, comes on like an escapee from the Drive soundtrack. There's a neat trick at the start of "Fuck Off Money," when the hum pans from right to left in the speakers—a vertigo-inducing physical sensation that lasts just a few seconds, before the whole thing builds into a wall of sound that gives My Bloody Valentine a run for their money. So, too, do the mercurial dynamics of "Pat Stains." Formed in 1995, Mogwai tap into that era again on "Supposedly, We Were Nightmares"—all gleeful Britpop swagger—and the big and wonderful "Ceiling Granny," which recalls, of all things, Smashing Pumpkins. And the late singer-songwriter David Berman serves as lyrical inspiration for the blissfully fuzzed-out "Ritchie Sacramento," which features the only vocal verses on the record: "Rise crystal spear, fly true over me...what brings you back?/ Promises of a memory/ Your own ghost running away with the past." There are surprises, too, like the spaghetti-western guitars and ice-cold electronic beats that open "Here We, Here We, Here We Go Forever" before it unspools into melodic, heart-tugging keys. As for the aforementioned "To the Bin My Friend, Tonight We Vacate Earth," it promises to make for a killer concert spectacle (cue the bright white lights): swerving wildly from shimmering cymbals and delicate piano to a huge wave of noise that feels like an embrace. This is drone with heart and soul. © Shelly Ridenour/Qobuz