Mogwai

Not everyone gets MOGWAI, but that's what makes them great. Theirs is majestic, powerful sound where barely a word is spoken yet it is the antithesis of background music. Album and song titles bemuse, confuse and delight in equal measure and live, they are utterly unstoppable.

For their seventh album 'Hardcore Will Never Die, But You Will' they have continued in this vein with a brave and instinctive album that is charged with an energy, spirit and intensity few can match. It is the sound of a band comfortable in their own skin, but clawing at the edges of their own capabilities, and drawing out something particularly special in the process.

Hardcore... is a natural progression from 2008's mighty The Hawk is Howling, but draws on a more varied sonic palette than its predecessor. It also throws into sharp relief how MOGWAI the live beast and MOGWAI the studio beast are two different, if complimentary animals. The monochrome starkness of their 2010 live movie/album Burning/Special Moves acknowledged the weight and scale of the band's breathtaking live shows. Hardcore... reminds us of the many moments of subtlety to be savoured from their studio work.

MOGWAI were birthed in the halcyon days of the mid-90s and helped Glasgow become one of the real bright spots in the musical universe again. They turned heads, hearts and stomachs with their live shows - stark aural assaults on the senses which swung between barely there and a coruscating scree of white noise. They've rolled out a quality half dozen albums and a clutch of EPs in the preceding years to considerable acclaim. Some people even bought the records too.

Over time, some kindred spirits have gone missing in (rock) action, but the original bond that held MOGWAI together remains, despite geography, age and responsibility. Certainly, there has been creative and fiscal peaks and plateaus for them like any creative endeavour but their single mindedness has posted them on an positive trajectory no fad, fashion or fool could derail. They are as at home sharing a bill with electronic boffinry of Aphex Twin as they are with doomy swoon of the The Cure or the apocalyptic rage of Neurosis. That's probably because they can do all three, often in the same tune.

'San Pedro' is the furious sequel to 'Glasgow Mega-Snake' from 2006's Mr Beast, a driving, duelling guitar battle where the band hurtle through to thundering climax. Letters to the Metro is yet more quintessential MOGWAI, sweetly melodic and oddly sentimental, where plaintive piano pokes and brushed drums set against loping, mournful guitar twangs. A thing of beauty. Elsewhere, the twitchy, mechanised ghosts of Suicide and Neu! are evoked on songs like 'Mexican Grand Prix' and 'George Square Thatcher Death Party'. MOGWAI have always excelled at the hypnotic but show an even greater range of textures here. 'How to Be a Werewolf' is similarly textured, rolling, gliding and building before exploding forth with streaks of molten stereoscopic guitar.

There was a time where MOGWAI feared Satan. Now the two appear to be on most genial of terms, they may have even nabbed some of his tunes – he has the best ones after all. Now MOGWAI fear nothing. And for that we should be thankful.