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Mogwai: The Bad Fire review – noise stalwarts’ journey into hell is unexpectedly heavenly

(Rock Action)While old-school fans may lament their softening, the Glasgow band swap rage for refuge as they face personal strife – and their 30th anniversary

Mogwai: Fanzine Made of Flesh – videoThere are certainly moments when the sound swells to all-the-effects-pedals-at-once crescendos, but in context, they seem more like exhalations rather than cathartic screams: Hi Chaos is underpinned by a gently rolling rhythm that pulls its finale back from the brink. Elsewhere on If You Find …, an exquisitely mournful guitar figure hangs suspended in echoing space over an unhurried rhythm, bearing a passing resemblance to pre-Dark Side of the Moon Pink Floyd, a comparison you suspect would have been taken very badly indeed by tracksuit-era Mogwai, but is intended in an entirely complimentary way. And there’s a certain skewed poppiness: with its vocodered vocals, bright analogue synths and blurs of frantically strummed guitar, Fanzine Made of Flesh conjures up the peculiar but appealing impression of Moon Safari-era Air if they had been as interested in Sonic Youth as Serge Gainsbourg.

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