*ALBUM REVIEW*

Mogwai - Happy Songs For Happy People

I've always found it impossible to like Mogwai. Since first listening to "Summer" on a crackly 7" back in 1996, I've see-sawed between hating loving them - they were so bloody trendy, y'know, the new unorthodoxy, the officially sanctioned antidote to Britpop's cult of personality - and loving hating them - all their songs sound the frickin' same, quite bit-LOUD BIT-quiet bit, for fuck's sake do something interesting, and stop laying into one of my favourite bands, would you?

But however infuriating their output since that time, one feeling Mogwai's music never elicited was contentment - always striving for beauty and elegance, it's no wonder they hate Blur so much. And so we reach 2003, and the surely ironically titled fourth full-length album Happy Songs For Happy People. For the first time, there are no pointlessly vast, sprawling, squalling epics - though rest assured, there is some squalling on "Killing All The Flies". No 20-minute Jewish hymns - but there is an 8 1/2 minute symphony called "Ratts Of The Capital". This is Mogwai distilled to their essence, and the result is an album of huge power, emotional depth and feeling, with vocals submerged under a claustrophobic blanket of effects and guitars battling with viola, cello, violin and piano. It's just as Eno as it is S***t, and all the greater for that.

If the last Sigur Ros album left you feeling short-changed, if you're tired of waiting for The Rock Of Travolta to record something else, or if you're just fed up with the tedium of skinny boys with '70s hair rocking out again, try some Happy Songs therapy. By the time you reach "Stop Coming To My House", this phenomenal, career-best album's finale, you'll be weeping if you've let it into your head. What you won't be, however, is content.

Originally published on Playlouder June 2003