The Hawk Is Howling

iTunes Review

Mogwai's sixth studio album gushes with the same kind of epically atmospheric instrumental juggernauts that characterized their late 1990's works and finds them reunited (for the first time in ten years) with Andy Miller, the producer who initially helped bring their colossal post rock soundscapes to the U.K. festival-attending masses. The humorously titled "I'm Jim Morrison, I'm Dead" sets the tone with scant piano notes and moody synthesizer drones that build by blanketing other instruments and textures in perpetual crescendos, spiraling continuously upward until the composition climaxes with walls of sound that end abruptly with a single guitar feeding back. "Batcat" subtly contrasts this by flirting with heavy metal guitar solos and pummeling hard rock rhythms. Mogwai shift gears again on "The Sun Smells Too Loud," which is so tuneful and catchy, it almost begs for some vocals until a fuzzy guitar line comes in and "sings" the melody before getting upstaged by some beautifully harmonizing keyboards. Ending the album with "The Precipice" is like stepping in an electric guitar hive and getting inundated with layers of buzzing solos.