You can get off to a fast start. You can sustain your opener with the main course, not filler. But can you end on a high note? Sometimes I wonder if recording a strong closer is the most difficult thing to pull off when it comes to album rock. When it comes to the cream of the crop in music, I can think of more strong openers than strong closers. Nonetheless, I still have my favorites which I’ll be featuring on Mental Jukebox all month.
Mogwai is a band that made an impact instantly – and somehow seems to get better with each recording. There hasn’t been a single dud in their entire album collection. But interestingly, the best closer, in my opinion, is still from their debut record, Young Team. It sounds like something created from a band that’s been at it for years. It’s a magnum opus for Mogwai and for the post rock genre. While the band certainly didn’t invent the genre, you could argue that no band has done more to help get the genre out there than Mogwai – and it all started with “Mogwai Fear Satan”.
What distinguishes itself immediately from other Mogwai anthems is its length. Clocking in at over 16 minutes, it is truly a magnum opus. It’s a swamp of timbre, textures and distortion. The kind of music you can get lost in and yet also the kind of music that can lead you to discover something significant. The drums are one continuous fill that tumbles over and over again. And the guitars sound like sirens in the night – running parallel to a distant flute in the background.