Mogwai – The Bad Fire – Album Review
by Killian Laher

The first non-soundtrack Mogwai album in four years.  At this stage, the band are now 30 years in and very much a career band.  The days of jarring and shocking are over, and they have become… some might say…. predictable?  Others might say…. reliable.

The album opens with God Gets You Back, their most Boards of Canada-channelling moment yet, a slow-burning, keyboard-heavy piece of music with warped, ghostly vocals.  Hi Chaos and What Kind of Mix Is This? are standard issue, kind of ‘post-gaze’ Mogwai and have a suitably epic feel.

Of late the band has strayed into pop rock territory, and released relatively straightforward tracks, the latest being Fanzine Made of Flesh.  But it’s the band at their least convincing, as the vocodered-vocal track is fairly unremarkable.  Later, Lion Rumpus is in a similar vein and is the one slight misstep on the album.

Much better is the lumbering (in a good way) Pale Vegan Hip Pain, which has a tranquil, stately drift, and this is followed by If You Find This World Bad You Should See Some of The Others.  This moody, glacially-paced track is something of a centrepiece.  Although it’s lengthy at over seven minutes there’s not an ounce of flab on it.  It really ignites at the four-minute mark when the heavy riffs come in – you really don’t want this one to end.  18 Volcanoes is a bit of a departure, it’s a prime slab of MBV-style shoegaze, with gauzy guitars that give the likes of DIIV, Newdad and Just Mustard a run for their money.

In 2025, this is unlikely to be anyone’s favourite Mogwai album. On the other hand, they have no bad albums, so if you like any of their albums of the last 15 years, you’ll enjoy this one.

God Gets You Back