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The Hawk Is Howling
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The Hawk Is Howling Image
Metascore
76

Generally favorable reviews - based on 27 Critic Reviews What's this?

User Score
8.3

Universal acclaim- based on 25 Ratings

  • Summary: The sixth album for the Scottish rock band was produced by Andy Miller.

Top Track

I'm Jim Morrison, I'm Dead
INSTRUMENTAL... See the rest of the song lyrics
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Critic Reviews

Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 20 out of 27
  2. Mixed: 7 out of 27
  3. Negative: 0 out of 27
  1. Urb
    90
    The Hawk is Howling is Mogwai at its best.
  2. Village Voice
    80
    It's a page out of Mogwai grandchildren Ratatat's playbook, and it shows these Scots doing something we haven't seen them do in a while: evolve.
  3. Under The Radar
    80
    This album kills. [Fall 2008, p.77]
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  4. Mojo
    80
    The Hawk Is Howling finds the Glasgow's guitar army relaxing the taut, economical songcraft of its 2006 predecessor, "Mr. Beast," and setting a new standard for irreverent track titles. [Oct 2008, p.102]
    All this publication's reviews
  5. Lost At Sea
    71
    Despite its lack of youthful anarchy, The Hawk Is Howling is an impressive record. Mogwai are among the world's most gifted musical collectives; perhaps they have just been making music too long to want or need to reinvent the game again.
  6. The A.V. Club
    67
    Hawk wades through the electronic textures and the roiling, tentative mood pieces that make Mogwai's weaker tunes logical (if not ideal) soundtrack fodder. The result, unfortunately, is a lot of running in place, when at this point it'd be far more daring to aim skyward.
  7. Pitchfork
    45
    Hawk makes marginal stylistic advances that it could stand to omit, and it lightly retreads stuff that needs no recapitulation.

See all 27 Critic Reviews

User Reviews

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Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 1 out of 2
  2. Mixed: 1 out of 2
  3. Negative: 0 out of 2
  1. d_nasty
    May 13, 2011
    7
    Mogwai have been really bouncing around different things in these last few years and are getting on to something here. Every song is great butMogwai have been really bouncing around different things in these last few years and are getting on to something here. Every song is great but what keeps them from absolute perfection is that they are all about 3 minutes too long and the songwriting doesn't change enough for a song like "the sun smells too loud" to be 6 minutes.… Collapse
  2. clem666
    Mar 10, 2021
    6
    Interesting instrumental rock album dotted with some bright and sparkling moments. Coming out of nowhere you suddenly realize instruments areInteresting instrumental rock album dotted with some bright and sparkling moments. Coming out of nowhere you suddenly realize instruments are all raging while trying to speak with you.

    However there are way more often moments of soft levitation and of questionning status-quo. Tracks are long enough to make us lose the north and without any vocal message we end up wandering in this one hour long crossing of the desert. Even the titles are created in order to prevent you to find a certain pattern or a certain interpretation grid.

    At the end of the day it feels like 'The Hawk Is Howling' could have been an amazing and moving experimental rock fresco but instead we have this album in which you will surely find surprises but also (and that was my case) a kind of almost undespicable boredom. Absolutely not a total boredom but more the nostalgic-melancholic kind of boredom as Mogwai makes just enough to keep you awake but not that much to make you wake up sweating at night.    … Expand

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