Mogwai: The Hawk Is Howling (2LP, white vinyl) [PIAS]

Why you'll love it

This remastered 2LP set on white vinyl spreads the album across four sides. It's the Glasgow band's first all-instrumental record, and it earned a gold award from the Independent Music Companies Association for 75,000 copies sold across Europe.

This edition

• 2LP set
• White vinyl
• Remastered

About the album

Mogwai have always been good at titles, and The Hawk Is Howling might hold their best set of them. For their sixth album they went back to producer Andy Miller and Chem19 Studios in Hamilton, South Lanarkshire, for the first time in ten years, recording between September 2007 and March 2008, with Gareth Jones mixing at Castle of Doom in Glasgow.

"I'm Jim Morrison, I'm Dead" opens on a slow, swelling piano figure, "Batcat" is a wall of heavy riffing, and "The Sun Smells Too Loud" is a surprisingly bright, almost poppy charge. "Scotland's Shame" adds a bowed mandolin, and "The Precipice" closes with a big, thundering finish. "Local Authority" and "Kings Meadow" give the record room to breathe between the storms. Several of these songs got their first airing at the Triptych Festival at Tramway in Glasgow in April 2008.

It reached No. 35 on the UK albums chart and No. 97 on the Billboard 200. There are no lyrics to learn, which leaves you free to concentrate on saying "I Love You, I'm Going to Blow Up Your School" to the person at the counter.

Also at Kops: more Mogwai on vinyl · browse Alternative

Tracklist

Listen

On Rock Action / PIAS, a reissue of the 2008 album.