(Spunk/EMI)

Scottish post-rock giants record three gigs, compile killer live album

If you ever saw Mogwai live – chances are it was last year’s monolithic Brisbane show – you would have walked away feeling crushed by the sheer penetrating beauty of the music along with having considerably-loosened eardrums. Decidedly not a “greatest hits” collective (as leader Stuart Braithwaite quipped, “if we ever did release one, we’ve already decided to call it ‘The Shitest Pish’), the Glasgewian five-piece have nevertheless recorded their three-night residency at Brooklyn’s Music Hall of Williamsburg in early 2009 for a career-summarising release. Mogwai’s first official live LP, Special Moves spans their entire catalogue from 1997’s trailblazing debut Young Team (calling cards Mogwai Fear Satan and Like Herod are recreated in all their H-bomb glory) to their most recent studio outing, 2008’s The Hawk Is Howling (represented by I’m Jim Morrison, I’m Dead and the sinister I Love You, I’m Going To Blow Up Your School). All the way through, the band sound enormous, running the full gamut from pastoral to decimating. Barry Burns’ heavily-treated vocals sound as celestial and eerie as ever on Hunted By A Freak and Rights Make 1 Wrong, while the beautifully-sung Cody chills and Glasgow Megasnake serves as a brief, yet annihilating finish. An addition of My Father My King would have made Special Moves an absolutely monumental live document, but then Stuart B and co haven’t performed that jaw-dropping epic in years. Sempiternal, lucid and eviscerating (the fact I managed to fit all three adjectives in once sentence is likewise incredulous) – just like a real-life Mogwai concert.

****½

DENIS SEMCHENKO

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