Michael Hann

Epic prog rock without the widdly-woo solos: Mogwai at the Tramway reviewed

Plus: quietly, over a decade, the Staves have become one of our best bands

Mogwai at the Tramway, Glasgow, in which the only stage theatrics saw bassist Dominic Aitchison move his right foot from a 35° to a 45° angle

You very possibly know the music of the Glaswegian band Mogwai, even if you don’t think you do. You might well have not listened to a note of their ten studio albums, their three live albums, or their four compilations. You may never have seen one of their pulverisingly loud live shows, or heard them on BBC 6 Music, their natural home. But you may well have heard them on TV, either as background music, or on one of their commissioned soundtracks — seven of them now, including the current Sky Atlantic mob series ZeroZeroZero.

It’s hardly surprising that one of their soundtracks was for the French TV show Les Revenants, about people coming back from the dead with ambiguous intentions, since virtually all their music — band albums or soundtracks — sounds as though it were designed to accompany images of people coming back from the dead with ambiguous intentions. The soundtracks tend to tell half the story though, the quiet half. This livestream, in which the band play their new album, As the Love Continues, in full, with a couple of old tracks as ‘encores’, told the other half.

A typical Mogwai track follows a template: it starts quietly; it features repeated chord progressions over which various instruments are layered; it changes a bit; then, several minutes in, Stuart Braithwaite and/or Barry Burns step on their guitar pedals and it gets very loud — their version of what is known in dance music as ‘the drop’. Oh, and sometimes Braithwaite sings. To those unfamiliar with the oeuvre, it all sounds the same. But then most rock groups sound the same: the comforting familiarity of one thing done very well is what keeps people coming back.

Mogwai is prog rock without the widdly-woo solos and the Roger Dean cover art

And, it must be said, Mogwai do their thing very well.

Already a subscriber? Log in

Keep reading with a free trial

Subscribe and get your first month of online and app access for free. After that it’s just £1 a week.

There’s no commitment, you can cancel any time.

Or

Unlock more articles

REGISTER

Comments

Don't miss out

Join the conversation with other Spectator readers. Subscribe to leave a comment.

Already a subscriber? Log in