Special Moves/Burning

Special Moves--which pulls at least one track from all six Mogwai albums, but no more than two--strategically positions the band's latter-day material among the old warhorses to build a set list that gradually intensifies and explodes like the band's best instrumental epics.

It's hard to imagine anyone but the previously committed fan will be signing up here. [Sep 2010, p.99]

That moment on a truly gorgeous version of "New Paths to Helicon, Pt. 1" is enough to justify the DVD, while the rest of the film's 45 minutes amply demonstrates why Mogwai is such a great live band. If Special Moves itself can't quite demonstrate the same fact, it comes as close as any album is likely to.

Special Moves/Burning might just serve as a fittingly monolithic monument to their work to date. [Sep 2010, p.98]

A useful entry point for newcomers, then, but there is just enough to make this a worthwhile purchase for long-time fans too.

As a live album, it isn't especially compelling, but it makes a great point of entry into the band's high-contrast sound.

They highlight Mogwai's biggest stylistic trademarks, and little else-the ambient drone and the electric guitar crashes that break its spell, and the waves of sound that evolve from carefully crafted crescendos. So while the final cuts are cohesive, they're also tight-lipped-safe.

With Special Moves, Mogwai have released a "greatest hits" collection in a sense, but it's indeed more special than that. Dramatic, at turns gentle, majestic and harsh, both old and new songs blend so well that there's no feeling of weak recent material sagging amidst earlier favorites.

Guitarist Stuart Braithwaite has certainly outstripped the generic post-rock style he helped to inspire, and does justice to some of his more direct influences--My Bloody Valentine's Kevin Shields and Robert Smith from The Cure, to name two. Extraneous touches, such as the occasional keyboard parts contributed by Barry Burns and the electronica-style glitches threaded through 2 Rights Make 1 Wrong, also ensure that Special Moves is a varied 75 minutes.

Special Moves illuminates the band's act for what it is.

Songs that brood on record become grand and celebratory live and that's what captured here. [21 Aug 2010, p.52]