Atomic

At this point in Mogwai’s history, it’d be unreasonable to expect any kind of seismic shift in direction, but what they’ve done with Atomic is refine their methods to create something that could just possibly be the highlight of the career to date.

If you are impatient, you’ll dread wondering if some of the songs are going anywhere, but most listeners will be fully rewarded with the promise that even the most ominous music on here is leading up to something transportive.

Future albums will reveal whether this is as much of an offshoot as Mogwai’s other soundtracks, but this understated, solid effort reveals a lot more imagination and prowess than most bands that have been around over 20 years.

Because it’s a soundtrack, where the music works in support of narrative and imagery, Atomic remains subdued.

The result is masterful: unsettling, retro-futuristic, beautiful and intense, but deeply immersive and listenable.

Ambitious and masterful, Atomic is another peak in Mogwai's career.

Atomic is a powerful artistic knife to your skull and leaves an impression that's lasting, to say the least. It's an esoteric trip that says a lot, without words.

Atomic perfectly captures the band's recent progressions, ornate (the strings-centered "Are You a Dancer?" and horn-heavy opening track "Ether") or otherwise, and is undoubtedly one of the most consistent albums front-to-back from Mogwai's two-decade-long career.

It packs a ferocious punch without compromising subtlety, operating with coiled concealed restraint. With their offering, Mogwai prove once more that, after more than twenty years, they’re a constantly evolving beast of a band.

Mogwai [parlays] the hoary quiet/loud arrangement dialectic into a thing of immersive, undeniably affecting potency. [May 2016, p.89]

Atomic is a conceptual artwork that is overshadowed and at times overburdened by its subject matter. Yet taken in this context it holds a brutalist, otherworldly thrall all its own.

Atomic succeeds because of the band’s willingness to dive into their muse and experiment. It’s why they’ve achieved such high status in the sub-genre. By taking on a subject larger than themselves, Mogwai are able to lose their identity in telling such a tragic story.

It’s Atomic that helps listeners make sense of this evolution in Mogwai’s interest in synthesizers. Synths do play a major role on Atomic, but the record is still unmistakably Mogwai, filled with moments of triumph, beauty, and horror.

Despite its minimalistic approach, the album poignantly illustrates the binary oppositions that cropped up in Hiroshima’s wake: life and death, hope and fear, war and peace, atomic and organic.

Atomic is a refinement of Mogwai's already fluent dramatic instrumental expressionism. [May - Jun 2016, p.95]

There’s nothing wrong with Atomic. If you like this sort of thing, you’ll probably think it’s as good as Mogwai’s other work; if you’re aware of their career trajectory, it will mean something specific in that respect, too. The problems come down to communicating the weightlessness of the invisible imaginary figures that dance across your mind’s eye when you’re listening to it.

Atomic is a soft reset that will allow the band to move in new directions in the future. Its curiosity is infectious and immensely exciting, and it sounds like the result of a group refreshed, hungry and eager to grow.

Atomic doesn’t quite hit the heights of their greatest soundtrack successes, but as a further document of a restlessly inventive band constantly tweaking their sound, it’s well worth approaching with open ears.

It’s futuristic and often dystopian.

Writing to script, the Scottish post-rockers have produced a powerful and fitting score, though as an album in its own right, it lacks the cohesion of their previous soundtrack, to French drama Les Revenants. It’s no cause for dread, but it’s one that doesn’t quite live up to its promise.

It's undeniably awe-inspiring and effective stuff, nut for fans, there's a sense of well-worn tropes entering half-life. [May 2016, p.76]