8A - Monday, September 22, 2008
The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com
'Hawk' without wings
Ethereal Scottish post-
rockers mimic previous
albums with little success
By SASHA RESENDE
DailyArts Writer
There's a genuine risk of dissatisfaction
when a music fan places too much faith in
his or her favorite band's art. By pronounc-
ing a certain band as one
of the best talents within
their given genre, fans **
make it nearly impos-
sible for said band to MOgWai
match - and especially The Hawk Is
exceed - expectations Howling
when releasing a new Matador
album. While a few select
musical endeavors actu-
ally possess the necessary skill to carry a
decade-long career without growing stale,
these bands are few and far between. How-
ever, it is a high challenge for these bands to
venture further into their art and produce
truly unique song collections as the years
continue to span. Some groups - like Radio-
head - have mastered this illusive craft,
while many more fail to adapt.
The Scottish post-rock powerhouse
Mogwai has unwittingly fallen into this
aforementioned trap of unattainable expec-
tations with their newest release The Hawk
Is Howling. Widely trumpeted as the reign-
ing torch-carriers of the post-rock sub-
genre, the band carries the burden of living
up to their own illustrious back-catalogue,
which includes some of the most stunning
pieces of music ofthe past decade. The quin-
tet's first album - the 1997 classic Mogwai
Young Team - introduced the band's unique
blend of atmospheric tension, off-set by the
sharp contrast of loud beats and soft pitch-
es. Many of the band's songs clocked in at
over ten minutes in length, but that never
worked against them. The band needed this
time to build its trademark tension and take
listeners on a euphoric ride through musical
soundscapes.Andit did it allwithoutvocals,
allowing the music alone to entrance.
Mogwai's spectacular debut is followed
by five subsequent releases, each building
on the last and culminating with their new-
est record. Despite a stellar production team
and a two-year gap since the band's last
release, The Hawk Is Howling sounds like
Mogwai's most lackluster collection to date.
While the band's previous efforts thrived on
theirlyric-less foundation, Mogwai'snewest
release could have benefited from a verse -
or ten. Opening with the cleverly titled "I'm
Jim Morrison, I'm Dead," the band makes
a bold attempt to recapture the aura and
grandeur of their previously released epics.
Unfortunately, the song doesn't match the
band's setqualitystandard. Ratherthanpull
its listener immediately into its grasp, the
track consists of an overly long piano-based
intro before progressing into a hypnotic
keyboard climax, well after its audience
begins to lose interest.
The album's unexciting opener char-
acterizes the bulk of its remaining songs.
Another less-than-awe-inspiring choice is
"Daphne and the Brain," which struggles
to carry its repetitive guitar strings across
the five-minute mark. Rather than build
upon its previous tension - as the band
had done on previous records - the track
stagnates and fails to achieve its goal of
epic sublimity. While these cuts cannot
be decisively categorized as "boring" or
"unimaginative," they lack the mesmer-
izing quality that defined the band's first
few releases.
With itslatest disc, Mogwaisurelysought
to recapture the lengthy lushness that first
put it on the post-rock map. The band occa-
sionally succeeds in reclaiming its trade-
mark aura, though these triumphs sound
more like regurgitations of "Auto Rock"
instead of wholly original sound bites. The
eight-minute long "Scotland's Shame" fits
this category, by featuring intriguing dis-
tortions over a tame keyboard and powerful
drumbeats. The songis possiblythe album's
closest attempt at a home run, carefully bal-
ancing its synthesized key strokes to the
song's gloomy mood.
These distinctive contrasts are what
Mogwai does best. Its latest album would
have soared had the band experimented
with these sharp distinctions. Instead
it recorded unnecessarily-long intros
and repetitive guitar riffs simply for the
sake of clocking in at over five minutes.
Although The Hawk Is Howling qualifies
as a noble attempt by Mogwai to recover
their signature atmospheric style, the
record sounds more hollow than their
previous attempts.
"
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