Mogwai - The Bad Fire

“How should we follow up our first Number One album?” is a happy dilemma for any band and, with all due respect, surely not one Mogwai ever expected to face. Here they are, though; 2021’s ‘As The Love Continues’ was swept to the top of the charts by both a dogged fanbase and a broader wave of goodwill towards a band that began as disruptive post-rock upstarts, but through decades of being avowedly themselves, have found themselves in the position of alternative national treasures. Any air of triumph that might have crept into this eleventh studio album, though, was quickly extinguished by a period of personal turmoil - particularly the life-threatening illness of guitarist Barry Burns’ daughter that she is now mercifully through the worst of. Those experiences inspired the record’s title, a Glaswegian colloquialism for hell, but whilst Mogwai have conjured up more than their share of doomy, nightmarish soundscapes over the years, ‘The Bad Fire’ is more a testament to keeping the devil off your back than confronting him head-on. 

With John Congleton decamping to Scotland to take on production duties, some of the most euphoric music they’ve made in a while makes it onto the record; ‘Lion Rumpus’, on which distorted guitars and synths clash, is a case in point, as is the dizzyingly unpredictable ‘Fanzine Made of Flesh’ and the fizzing, reverb-drenched ‘Hi Chaos’. Elsewhere, there’s a palpable nervous energy to ‘Pale Vegan Hip Pain’, while ’18 Volcanoes’ is thick with shoegazey atmosphere, recalling My Bloody Valentine. The album’s centrepiece, meanwhile, is classic Mogwai in both title and sound (‘If You Find This World Bad, You Should See Some of the Others’), but for the most part here, the band have committed to subtle reinvention.