Red Planet Reviews - Mogwai’s “Atomic”
(Written for the April 19, 2016 edition of UAB Kaleidoscope)
Mogwai has never really been a “typical” rock and roll band. They’ve carved out a niche over the past twenty years by creating post-rock that’s equal parts powerful, thought-provoking, and toes the line between muted, toned down affairs and epic, space filling explosions of sound. If there’s ever been a better representative of “loud-quiet-loud”, they’re in very rarified air. In between amazing albums such as Come On Die Young and Hardcore Will Never Die But You Will, the band has taken some interesting detours, providing soundtracks for everything from a biopic of soccer legend Zinedine Zidane, a French telenovela, and BBC documentaries. Which is where we find Atomic, an album that exists in between the edges of both. Taking the soundtrack the Scots composed for the 2015 BBC documentary Storyville – Atomic: Living in Dread and Promise, a piece on nuclear proliferation in the beginning period of the atomic age in the mid-20th century, Mogwai saw some sort of potential reaction, took the compositions, and redid them bit by bit. Will this fusion of the bands multiple interests create success?
“Ether” starts things off on a good note, a bit of a majestic opening that you could imagine Morgan Freeman talking over, one that gives hope and positivity to a new day through keys, brass, and guitars. Mogwai seem to be toeing a line between the more synth/electronic based work in 2014’s Rave Tapes and their previous output such as Mr. Beast that went for more of an introspective tone with more traditional instruments, a balance that shines well in the following track.
It’s when you hear the first measures of “SCRAM” that it’s made apparent that Mogwai are in full on experimentation mode. Its synths and electronic drums call out from some lost episode of How It’s Made, but when the track really hits its stride with some distorted guitars echoing in the background it feels more like something that could’ve come from Mogwai’s last work Rave Tapes had it struck a different tone.
We’re pressing on with “Bitterness Centrifuge”, an imperial feeling song that sounds like it stepped right out of Chernobyl, with synthesizers and guitars running in tandem to create some sort of epic-sounding fusion, whirring along dutifully for five minutes of ambiental power.
Following up is “U-235”, a piece that could’ve well been stripped from some dark cyberpunk tale full of augmented people and corporate conspiracies. It borders on the edge of “place your title here”-wave, complete with vibey synth loops and simple drum machine beats, though it does ultimately follow that classic “Loud Quiet Loud” formula the band is generally fond of.
“Pripyat” gives off a bit of a colder, harsher vibe than much of the previous offerings. In a way, it feels faintly reminiscent to Rave Tapes number “Repelish” as it blends distorted synth, a heavy kick, and some guitar interspersed as Dominic Aitchison plugs along on bass, though it substitutes the voice sample of the latter and comes off far more isolating for the change.
When “Weak Force” steps in, the dueling keys and piano provide a great setting for the synths to put in some work. However, everything is brought low near the midway point, a calm before the storm as a guitar cuts through the air and and occasional drum hits with sixteenths, briefly escalating the track somewhat before everything dies down.
“Little Boy” immediately feels like old Mogwai, giving off a very Young Team vibe with the buzz of a guitar prefacing the one two of the drums and Aitchison’s guttural bass before both guitars are let loose to run rampant.
Next up is “Are You A Dancer?” whose opening features an organ that feels a bit out of place. However, that’s a sign of what’s to come, as we get a fiddle that takes over a somewhat melancholy affair. It’s a nice change of pace, as the manipulation of the strings shifts from more flowing, even notes to a staccato of rapid fire succession.
On “Tzar”, we’re given something that feels like an incoming transmission, the static of a guitar pedal giving way to Martin Bulloch’s kick drum and toms with a piano close behind. The track continues to build up as the “signal” becomes a bit clearer with guitars taking on more definition before an explosion of sound, guitars howling in unison as vocal chants dart in and out. For a few grand minutes, it feels like Mogwai at critical mass, before once again normalizing.
The finale “Fat Man” starts off a bit more poignant with keys front and center, a slight reverb making each press of the ivories linger just long enough to grasp your attention. Beyond a bellowing synth in the distance, the track stays largely muted until guitars and drums drop in out of nowhere about three minutes in. As everything else around it picks up in volume and density, that singular piano continues on unabated, pressing on as if it were fate that compelled it to do so until finally, around the five minute mark, the keys ring a bit slower, the kick drum providing a steady pulse. Each breath of clarity rings out slower and slower still before the heart beat stops entirely and the piano lets out its last sigh. This feels like the end of something far bigger than just an album. In a sense, this feels very much like a society obsessed with nuclear power and cold wars going a step too far and bringing about the twilight of civilization. Humanity leaves not with a bang, but a whimper, as it seems.
As the titles of the album and songs infer, Atomic is an album with its mind squarely on humanity’s dalliance with nuclear energy and weaponry. Without the benefit of seeing the documentary it’s pulled from, Atomic will likely feel right at home for Mogwai fans and post-rock enthusiasts. It’s ten tracks of exchanges of quiet and maelstroms. When cross-referenced with the hour-long feature, however, the album tells a decades-long story in instrumental form, each track feeling like a chronological archive of key moments in the Atomic Age from the dropping of the “Little Boy” and “Fat Man” bombs to the Cuban Missile Crisis all the way to Chernobyl and Ronald Reagan stepping in the arena imploring Mikhail Gorbachev to break the walls down, and beyond. History gives the album the definition and weight it needs for the listener to truly make an emotional and mental connection with the somber tone and chemistry of older and newer technologies. The band mentioned a tour stop in Hiroshima that moved them to record Atomic, and it’s that personal influence combined with sixty year old recordings of PSAs, mushroom clouds, NMRI machines, and cities turned to rubble that tracks like “Bitterness Centrifuge” benefit from. The perspective of the doc allows each song to find their marks instead of just being left out in the open and risking meaning and purpose being “lost in translation”. That said, it’s largely the same Mogwai that has been working industriously for ages, and the album doesn’t deviate too far from the formula that’s been working for so long. Even with the meaning out of the equation, Atomic feels like a good omnibus of the band’s past material. While there’s no clear track that stands out from the rest a la “Glasgow Mega Snake” or “Rano Pano”, the album as a whole is solid, well structured, and doesn’t really possess a weak link among its ten pieces. While Atomic might not be as accessible to newer listeners as Mogwai’s last couple of albums, and might be a bit diminished without the aid of its source material, it’s equally as nice an album to throw on in the background and work along to as it is to cut out the lights, throw some headphones on, and become totally immersed in.
