MOGWAI 黑胶唱片和CD

Review: It's hard to underestimate the impact made by Mogwai's debut album, 'Young Team', on its initial release in 1997. Released at the height of the Brit-pop nonsense, it eschewed contemporaneous trends within indie-music in favour of a hazy, immersive and endlessly inventive 'post-rock' sound. All these years on from its initial release, the album still sounds spellbinding (and, thanks to a sterling remastering job, more sonically detailed than ever). For proof of the album's majesty, look no further than instrumental opener 'Yes! I Am A Long Way From Home' (which gets more intense and psychedelic as it goes along), the insanely good, near 12-minute post-rock noise opus 'Like Herrod', the echo-laden piano track 'Radar Maker' and the vast, 16-minute, album-closing opus that is 'Mogwai Fear Satan'.

Review: Breaking from their exceptional soundtrack work of late, the infallible Scottish post-rock behemoth Mogwai have returned to the studio for their ninth full-length. 'Every Country's Sun' is a whirlwind album whose sheer impact hinges on its powerful use of contrast, most likely evident of their recent film and television score work. Passages of atmospheric calm give way to loud cascading floods of aggression without sounding trite, forced or clumsy, and a more polished use of electronics further accentuates the band's tonal variety. From the spatial futuristic opener 'Coolverine' to the album's grinding and mechanical climax, 'Every Country's Sun' feels like a score for a film not yet made, following all the highs, lows, twists and turns of narrative told by a band continuing to showcase their deft and controlled writing.