release date: Feb. 2, 2011
format: 2 cd (Japan issue)
[album rate: 3,5 / 5] [3,48]
producer: Paul Savage & Mogwai
label: Rock Action / Hostess Entertainment Unlimited - nationality: Scotland, UK
Track highlights: 1. "White Noise" - 2. "Mexican Grand Prix" - 3. "Rano Pano" - 4. "Death Rays" - 7. "George Square Thatcher Death Party" - 8. "How to Be a Werewolf" - 10. "You're Lionel Richie" - *11. "Slight Domestic"
*bonus track on Japanese issue
7th studio album succeeding a nearly fixed 2½ years period in between albums following The Hawk Is Howling (Sep. 2008), preceeding Rave Tapes (2014), and following their first live album Special Moves (released Aug. 2010). This Japanese issue comes with three bonus tracks - two added to the standard album making it a 10 tracks album of 62 minutes (9 minutes longer than the standard version) and with one extra track on a bonus disc containing a 23 minutes composition.
Compared to the 2008 album this seems like a general improvement. The music may reflect a more dominant quietness than usually with Mogwai, although, it doesn't come through as an ambient soundtrack album - there's just more space on the individual compositions and then it doesn't sound as if they build on any particular period of theirs. In that respect it sounds more like a fresh start combining piano parts with dominance of guitars, and then there's just less room for the ordinary slow / fast, soft / hard-opposites. Instead, the songs come out as more progressive structures, which could be interpreted as a sign of maturity, but which ultimately only proves that Mogwai are still capable of looking forward and evolve.
