Mogwai
The Hawk Is Howling
(Matador, 2008)

Piano is the first instrument you’ll hear on The Hawk Is Howling, Mogwai’s new and sixth full-length album. Anybody who’s listened to the Glasgow-based group’s last couple of records won’t be too surprised at this—both 2006’s Mr. Beast and 2003’s Happy Songs for Happy People reflected the band’s decision to ditch the quick, surprising shifts from ominously quiet to painfully loud that were characteristic of their early days. These jarring, visceral dynamics, with good reason, excited those still hung up on Slint’s Spiderland et al, but they’re absolutely not the point anymore.

What The Hawk Is Howling seems to beckon is a new, reversed notion of film-making—fitting a movie to a score rather than the other way around. A music video couldn’t fit the bill here: Who could tame the bristling rhinoceros that is this album’s first single, “Batcat”, into a low to medium-budget clip? There’s a reason there were elephants in the Levi’s commercial way back that featured “Summer”—Mogwai’s rock is monstrous, whether they’re layin’ low and introverted or causing permanent hearing damage. Perhaps it’s best that Mogwai showcases their music in the way that they do—the scope and scale of their sound presents a full-range emotional experience without any visual or verbal accompaniment. The only non-instrumental adornments here are the song titles, and one ought not look to them for insight into what’s going on, other than their affirmation of the band’s sense of humor. A couple of chuckle-worthy tracklisting items include “The Sun Smells Too Loud”, “I Love You, I’m Going to Blow Up Your School” (a reference to Heathers, it seems), and “Thank You Space Expert.”

These three silly titles are reserved for what turn out to be the album’s loveliest, most autumnal tracks. The Hawk Is Howling drifts gradually between tension (“Batcat” and “Scotland’s Shame”) and quiet grandeur (the three tracks just mentioned), and the songs are longer on average than their other output since 2000—these tunes average out at more than five minutes in length, running as long as eight minutes in the aforementioned, sublime “Thank You Space Expert.” This song’s hook hangs on a slow, stuttered piano riff that offers an aching new take on such prior successes as “2 Rights Make 1 Wrong” from 2001’s Rock Action. It would’ve been interesting to see whether they’d reinvent themselves as radically as they did on Happy Songs, but a further refinement of their existing strengths is absolutely welcome. Nobody knocks a composer like John Williams for sounding like himself in his scores—why would anyone complain when Mogwai’s songs are still so lovely? This could be music for a breakup, a high school graduation, the sleepy stretch at the end of a long road-trip, or damn well anything. It’s a record that’s malleable in its emotional cadence, and dramatic without any heavy-handed portent weighing it down.

Listen: Various Tracks [at myspace.com]

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