Mogwai, The Hawk Is Howling

World going to hell in a handcart? Bank balance collapsing faster than, well, the banks? No matter: Mogwai are here with 63 minutes of instrumental boom and balm. After 2006's inventive and evocative soundtrack for artist Douglas Gordon's movie about French footballing genius Zinedine Zidane (Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait), on their sixth studio album the Glasgow outfit offer squalling but sublime head-nodders ("I Love You, I'm Going To Blow Up Your School"), slabs of hymnal prog ("Scotland's Shame"), and even — whisper it — poppy melodic hooks picked out on twinkling keyboards ("The Sun Smells Too Loud"). The ear-bleeding noise-for-noise-sake that previously bedevilled their music is here shaped into something more finely wrought, without losing any of this stoutly refusenik band's power. "The Hawk Is Howling" is glorious stuff, expansive, escapist and, yes, uplifting. Can we also just recommend tracking down a copy of the single release of Batcat? Not only because it's a swirling blues-rock epic that's just thrillingly heavy (Kings Of Leon? Bah! They don't rock like Mogwai rock!). But also for the title of the b-side: "Stupid Prick Gets Chased By The Police And Loses His Slut Girlfriend." Which is almost as brilliant as the legend that adorned Mogwai's classic 1999 merchandise T-shirts — "Blur: Are Shite".