Mogwai
Rave Tapes

The Mogwai now have a well-recognizable sound that their listeners will have no trouble identifying, without however giving up some small novelty with each new release, without ever really turning the tables.

In this "Rave Tapes," clear of the guitar outbursts of some previous albums, they're the same old Scots, who this time start playing with electronic manipulation of the songs, yet it never feels excessive.
So one can talk about a non-invasive presence if we exclude the misleading space-noise progression of "Remurdered" and partly the final "Lord Is Out of Control," where a vocoder is shot into open space inside a spacecraft, with the onboard computer's voice trying to contact Earth unsuccessfully and ending scattered in the ether.

There are pieces to jot down in your notebook: think of the swirling crescendos of "Hexon Bogon" (act by subtraction on "Rano Pano" by removing the noise residues, shorten the whole by about half, and here’s the hot dish on the table) and the epic limitless green expanses of "No Medicine For Regret."

Going in chronological order, one can add to the good stuff the relaxed and calm opening of "Heard About You Last Night," less so "Simon Ferocious" which should have been relegated to a B-side role, perhaps making room for one of the three much more interesting bonus tracks.

Skipping past two other pieces we've already talked about, we reach the central part of the album that successively hosts "Repelish" (good but somewhat thwarted by the spoken words), "Mastercard" which brings back some guitar harshnesses that seemed dormant, and "Deesh" which is their usual tranquil atmospheric piece with a gust of synth seeping through the cracks.

"Blues Hour" is a piano ballad and, but this is no novelty, the only truly sung piece by Mogwai, after the zero on "HWNDBYW": not bad, although far from gems such as "Travel Is Dangerous," "Take Me Somewhere Nice," or "Cody."

Despite being slightly inferior to the previous "Hardcore Will Never Die, But You Will" and below the masterpiece "Mr. Beast," it remains an appreciable album where Mogwai still offer us interesting insights to fill our days.