Saturday, September 3, 2011

Notes on hardcore will never die but you will by mogwai

Mogwai continues their post-rock traditions with hardcore will never die, but you will. The Glasgow band may have outgrown most of the post-rock title from before in this album though and have entered the best of ambient music. You can argue whether you like it or not but I'm not here to beg you to listen to it. I think you should decide for yourself and read what I've got to say and see if your moved enough to at least glance at one song. Mogwai do deserve to be heard and whether you don't like the change in their sound that's your loss because bands are supposed to undergo change.

1. White noise: the beginning sounds like they're recording in a school house. The guitars, one of them is picking pretty heavily. Another is doing a similar thing but on a lower string and its got an echo then there's this weird guitar sounding effect. Then there's a piano sound I'm pretty sure its a keyboard and it's layered to make it sound beautiful and clean and its pretty good for a start off the guitars & piano keep changing the only constants is the drums and the guitar that comes in first in the song plucking. I think when comparing them to explosions in the sky they have short songs and it hardly changes as much as them.
2. Mexican grand prix: the start has a peculiar sound like the sound your phone makes when your playing guitar and you get a text message and you hear a tap tap tap metronome sounding squel. The piano starts and it progressively begins to sound really similar to digitalism. The "vocals" are clearly on an acid trip through a tube flange effect. Not much else to say other than its very similar sounding to pogo by digitalism I can just go "oowowow yeah oh oh there's something in the air..." the ending is nice though its change marks its old mogwai sound and quickness everybody loves.
3. Rano pano: DRIVE its turned all the way up but its soft on your ears not busting them like in an alternative rock song. Yeah sure I play with my guitar drive to big deal the point is they were able to get that sound without the uncomfortable ear side effects. The best part is they have a split ear effect and it keeps adding on the bass comes next in sequencing order then drums and finally a piano out of nowhere comes in. The progression is tremendous I admit they are good at progression & degression in this song. After a while the layers of song Peel off and come back on. The song slowly slows and only the bass is left.
4. Death rays: boom boom boom I can't tell if that drum is either a small foot bass drum or a huge loud bass drum you beat on, but its a thing to notice for sure as the guitar plays. Another guitar is added and the full drum set with a guitar and yet another guitar in a higher key plays. The guitars duel. Its twinkling. The song is short and stable but its ends abruptly.
5. San Pedro: just as abruptly death rays ends this song begins and I'm pretty ticked because of that. Even if the guitar fretting is good the end-beginning didn't favor me. The song isn't very innovative either its pretty rock styled and doesn't sound too unique.
6. Letters to the metro: piano begins tapping drums. Echoed guitar loops and change in piano keep things moving. For the most part this repeats and were ending in a fading manner.
7. George square Thatcher death party: count off then bass begins just as the drums pound away. The keyboard comes in a few seconds later a guitar comes in. There's vocals in it again and it has auto tune or something similar to auto tune the instruments get louder when he sings of course. The song is too short though, again.
8. How to be a werewolf: well it's longer 6 mins and it starts off slow and quiet so you can already tell the progression will be great. Drums come in next, a taping beat comes in next and that keeps going on for a while until the guitar gets loud. Then it resumes back to its previous state and then the guitars start to wander around. Everything starts stripping apart and layer by layer the song dies out and fades.
9. Too raging to cheers: keyboard with a reverb/flange effect on it starts the song off. Then a plucking guitar in the form of an Asian traditional style plays while the Viola and violin start and drums start killing. The dramatic part begins at 1:39 and it is my favorite part it has that feeling that everything is falling apart and slowly dieing or falling from the sky and crashing down and exploading.
10. You're Lionel Richie: there is a faint music at the distance then a blip of words and a guitar plays closer and I believe the person speaking is speaking Portuguese or Italian it is that clear but the blip was of the romance languages. Soft only guitar... sounds at a distance, wind like sounds dispersing around like a tidal wave slowly pulsating from soft to loud to soft. Then it gives way to a guitar on high distortion and the drums do come in with the guitar. The song starts piling with layers of sound and keeps growing and even though there's distortion there are no ears busting in fact its tame. I just wanna point out how camouflaged the bass was because its almost unheard and nice.

Mogwai had something going on in this album and its an incredible album its not that "wooo pop" song generic. It may not be as colorful as a fast paced, short dagger alternative rock song with the quick progression but it does show some really rad progression and in turn has a better outcome picture a long book versus a short story. Long books are slower at the beginning but the plots get amazingly better. Short stories are miscellaneous and have a moral that isn't that built upon as in a groundbreaking novel. To music, post-rock is that groundbreaking novel and it will forever be able to influence and mogwai will always be remembered for their exquisite post-rock.

Music to note: Explosions in the sky, Godspeed you! black emperor, This will destroy you, Mono, and Giardini di Miro.

posted from Bloggeroid

1 comment:

  1. Sorry dude, I honestly didn't realize you actually went ahead with the Mogwai review... that was totally unintentional! Won't happen again man x

    ReplyDelete

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