Scottish post-rock band Mogwai have released their ninth album As The Love Continues. The band has been a pioneering staple of the genre for over 25 years, expanding into soundtracks for documentaries and TV shows around the world that have allowed them to expand beyond just the dreamy rock music they create. Though their soundtracks can be intertwined with their regular artist albums at times, this has the feeling of a proper album to build on a legacy cemented among the greats.
The album opener “To The Bin My Friend, Tonight We Vacate Earth” comes at coincidentally just at a major moment in space exploration when the NASA rover Perseverance made its landfall on Mars and has been beaming images back from the surface of the red planet. Perseverance is there to collect samples and prepare for a future of human exploration – vacating Earth as we destroy it in turn.
As The Love Continues makes you feel comfortable being back with a new record from Mogwai. There are moments of blissful, calming piano and then moments where it gets crunchy and distorted like on “Drive The Nail” or the straightaway instrumental rock like “Ceiling Granny.”
This isn’t an album where they completely rewrite their playbook and that is fine. They don’t need to do that. It is nice to feel relaxed with a new Mogwai album. Like most of their projects, the pacing is measured, but there are moments of exaltation where every element bursts with the energy of a kid at the end of a sugar high like on the superbly named “Fuck Off Money.” As The Love Continues flows well together and feels best listened as a whole, though the singles “Dry Fantasy: and “Richie Sacramento” will be familiar if you heard them ahead of time. There is the occasional vocal, but as is the case typically in this genre and with them, this is built around drums, guitars, synths and pianos. There are a few samples, but the instrumentals do the work as they connect us to another world.
In a time that can feel a bit cold and lonely, this makes it feel a little warmer and cozier. Listen to the new LP and pick up your copy in various formats on their website.
