Mogwai- Hardcore will never die, but you will.

ARTIST: MOGWAI

ALBUM: HARDCORE WILL NEVER DIE BUT YOU WILL

LENGTH: 53:08

LABEL: SUB POP

RATING: 7.2/10

TRACK LISTING:

1. White Noise– 5:04
2. Mexican Grand Prix– 5:18
3. Rano Pano 5:15
4. Death Rays – 6:01
5. San Pedro – 3:27
6. Letters to the metro – 4:41
7. George Square Thatcher Death party – 4:00
8. How to be a werewolf – 6:23
9. Too Raging to Cheers – 4:30
10. You're Lionel Richie– 8:29

I was trying to find something to review when I found this record. I had been meaning to check out Mogwai for quite some time, so now I finally have a chance to do so. The album opens up with "White Noise" and I must say, its a fitting title. The album opens up with quiet mumbles which bleeds into the rest of the song. Its a very lonely sound on this song. The background mumbles continue throughout the song and with the lonely vibe set with the music, it gave me an image of being in a loud room with many people in it, yet still feeling alone. The one thing that kind of bugged me though were the drums. To me, they never flowed. They gave the song a jagged feel, it seemed.

The first track made me kind of skeptical. Bands that tend to focus more on instrumentals fall victim to cliches often. Delay on the guitar, big sounding drums with reverb. Its sometimes hard to distinguish the difference between a decent band in the controversially named genre "Post-Rock" and a entirely mediocre record. To me, what it comes down to is passion. Anybody can make an Explosions in the sky(EITS) rip off, and after this first track I was worried that the record might sound like a mix between EITS and U2s' "How to dismantle an atomic bomb"

I cannot begin to tell you the confusion the second track, "Mexican Grand Prix" gave me. Even after hearing the whole record, I dont understand how this song fits the rest of the record. When the song started, I noticed how much the computerized hand claps bugged me. The vocals were obnoxiously auto-tuned for that all too familiar coded sounding voice. To be fair, I am not a fan of the 8 bit genre. For those who are, there are two songs on this record that you may enjoy. Along with "Mexican Grand Prix" the song "George Square Thatcher Death Party" fits the 8-bit vibe. It opens with a catchy fuzz driven bass, and to no shock of my own, a synth. The guitar bends on this song are pretty awesome, they gave me a good distraction from his singing.

Both of those songs were hard to make out, lyrically. I could not find any sites with lyrics at the time of this review. Maybe behind those auto-tuned drenched vocals, there is a message to be heard. After 4 tracks I started realizing that at least to me, the record has yet to establish itself. It doesnt seem to flow.

There are some songs on this record that come off as stale to me. The music is always well constructed. This band knows how to harmonize their guitars very well. The drummer does a good job of keeping the down-sounding songs quiet and not falling to the cliche floor tom sound that Angels and Airwaves made so overdone. It may not be groundbreaking, but the songs are good enough to at least enjoy how real the drums feel.

On the songs "San Pedro" and "Too Raging to Cheers" the band displays an aggressive side. They mix strings in with a very riff-heavy song and pull it off without sounding like a Godspeed rip off.

The song "Letters to the metro" is a stand out track to me. Ominous sounding piano leads into a very low key sounding drum beat. I guess Im really cynical about guitars in instrumental type music. It usually has the same tone and although may be very moving, it gets boring hearing the same crecendos. This song took a turn I didnt expect. Once the guitar started getting a little louder I thought it was time to hit the delay pedal. I was wrong. Great guitar tone, very lonely sounding. What seperated this song from most cliche songs is that I believed this song. The lead work reminded me of the bridge in "Cowboy Dan" by Modest Mouse. This track specifically has the most heart on the record to me.

I wish they had chosen a better closing song. It changed directions too often to keep me interested in the un-avoidable build up of fuzz that would surely close the record.

Overall, this record has some really good, heartfelt moments. It never really established a steady pace, and Im not sure that it really had an "album feel". There is no question that these gents know how to harmonize their instruments. They know how to write leads and solos that actually fit the song and not feel false or cheesy. I am glad I got a chance to hear this record, and I'll probably check out at least a couple songs from their earlier releases to try and find some more honest, moving pieces of instrumental work. This record is amazing one moment, and puzzling the next. But it has enough good moments to make up for the lesser moments.