Album Review: Mogwai - 'The Bad Fire'
Thirty years into an unlikely career as standard bearers of post-rock, the Scottish quartet returns with album number eleven, ‘The Bad Fire’. Warning: it might get loud.
Well received by critics, the band’s previous album, ‘As The Love Continues’, received praise for its more expansive and emotionally resonant approach, blending the cinematic soundscapes acquired through their increasingly prolific soundtrack work (Les Revenants, Zindane: A 21st Century Portrait) with more accessible song structures. An unexpected (or, as guitarist Stuart Braithwaite puts it, ‘psychedelically weird’) UK no.1 in the middle of covid lockdown, the album’s success was all the more notable for the lack of commerciality usually associated with Big Hit Records.
This is not to say that Mogwai goes out of its way to make music that is purposefully challenging, and inaccessible to your average fan. It’s the type of music that should appeal to both casual listeners and those who enjoy more complex or experimental sounds. Their music can be meditative or cathartic, melodic or dissonant - it invites listeners to engage in the moment, whether they’re just passing through or diving deep into the experience. The fact that it took some 26 years for their first no.1 record speaks more to a band ahead of their time, the world catching up with them - rather than the other way round.
‘The Bad Fire’ is a record born out of a particularly traumatic period for the band. Taking its name from the Glaswegian for Hell, the title reflects this, as much as it does Stuart’s immersion in William Blake. New in the studio is John Congleton - long time fan, with space rock credentials to boot (check out his work with Explosions In The Sky for clues as to what direction he chose to take with Mogwai) and someone who found them ‘incapable of bullshit’ in the studio - in other words, a producer's dream.
Mogwai’s ability to blend feelings of tension, euphoria, melancholy, and introspection is evident throughout the record. Often, you can find all of these on one track (as on 18 Volcanoes), but mostly the melancholy prevails.
Elsewhere, the influences are very apparent. ‘Fanzines Made Of Fear’ is reminiscent of My Bloody Valentine crossed with French electro-ists M83, with its densely layered guitars, indecipherable vocals buried in the mix, and electronics gliding along the top. It's a melodic number that the casual fan can engage with, clocking in at a tight four minutes. On the other hand, ‘Hammer Room’ begins with shades of Steve Reich and ends in 70s-era glam.
Pleasingly, the record continues the tradition of inspired song titles, bearing little relation to the music. Without hearing it, ‘Pale Vegan Hip Pain’ is a song you might expect to see on an album sleeve from Hex era The Fall. Or any era of The Fall, to be fair. Here it is a haunting seven-minute instrumental of the widescreen cinematic variety. Certain songs - ‘What Kind Of Mix is This?’ is one, ‘If You Find This World Bad’, ‘You Should See Some Of The Others’ is another - use repetition almost as a weapon, to build emotional tension, making listeners feel as though they are stuck in an inescapable cycle. As with all music made with such attention to detail, ‘The Bad Fire’ demands repeat listening, with more of its sonic layers revealed with each playback.
Album closer, the epic ‘Fact Boy’, continues Mogwai’s tendency to deliver music that allows fans to dive deep - the dense and experimental side. The song revels in its grandiosity and rounds out the compact ten-track album. It’s open-ended, drifting the listener into the hazy distance.
A certain type of fan will discount any album that they didn’t first discover in their youth as a poor facsimile of the band’s best work. It's that first youthfully intense period of musical discovery that shapes our opinion of our favourite artists for most of the rest of our lives. For Mogwai fans who have stuck with them for over three decades, ‘The Bad Fire’ may not stand up next to ‘Young Team’ or ‘Come On Die Young’. Or even 2011’s ‘Hardcore Will Never Die But You Will’, with all its hidden depths. But there aren’t many artists producing such thought-provoking work in 2025, and even fewer producing vital music like this decades into their careers. ‘The Bad Fire’ is a worthy addition to the cannon. It's still loud and it still matters.
Words by Colin Rice
