Mogwai have announced their 11th studio album, ‘The Bad Fire’ – listen to new single ‘Lion Rumpus’ below.
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The Glasgow band are due to release the 10-track record on January 24 via Rock Action – you can pre-order/pre-save it here. Following on from 2021’s ‘As The Love Continues’, the forthcoming project has already been previewed with the song ‘God Gets You Back’.
‘The Bad Fire’ was produced by Grammy-winner John Congleton (St. Vincent, Angel Olsen, John Grant) at the Chem19 studios in Blantyre, Scotland.
Mogwai’s latest offering ‘Lion Rumpus’ finds Stuart Braithwaite and co. “at their coruscating and progressive best”, per a press release.
The single opens with an anthemic and expansive intro, eventually introducing squeals of distorted electric guitar. Later, robotic vocals blend into the huge wall-of-sound instrumental – which doesn’t let up over its three-and-a-half-minute duration.
“At its core ‘Lion Rumpus’ hones in on Mogwai’s ability to create vast swells of emotion without ever pandering to their audience nor playing it safe,” a description reads.
The track is accompanied by an official music video that follows Glaswegian native Lawrence (Larry) Wilson, who became a dog walker after moving to New York.
Directed by Mogwai’s long-time collaborator Antony Crook (who helmed the 2024 documentary Mogwai: If The Stars Had A Sound), the visuals take us through the streets of downtown Manhattan with some of the dogs and people that Wilson meets along the way. Watch above.
In a statement about the period that had inspired their upcoming new album, Mogwai said: “After the high of putting out ‘As The Love Continues’, the following years were personally hard for us.
“We’ve dealt with a lot of loss and in Barry’s case a serious family illness with one of his daughters. Getting back together to write and record this record felt like a refuge and with John Congleton we feel that we’ve made something special.”
They continued: “We often hear from people that our music has helped them get through hard times in their lives and for once I think it applies to us as well.”
‘The Bad Fire’ is described as “a collection of songs that forgo nostalgia and easy victories, once again finding Mogwai pushing forward with some of the most beautiful and explosive songs of their career”.
The tracklist for Mogwai’s ‘The Bad Fire’ is:
1. ‘God Gets You Back’
2. ‘Hi Chaos’
3. ‘What Kind of Mix Is This?’
4. ‘Fanzine Made Of Flesh’
5. ‘Pale Vegan Hip Pain’
6. ‘If You Find This World Bad, You Should See Some Of The Others’
7. ’18 Volcanoes’
8. ‘Hammer Room’
9. ‘Lion Rumpus’
Mogwai are set to embark on a huge world tour in February, following the release of ‘The Bad Fire’. The UK leg includes a show at the O2 Academy Brixton in London ahead of stops at Leeds’ O2 Academy and Edinburgh’s Usher Hall.
Find any remaining tickets here (UK) and here (North America).
In a three-star review of Mogwai’s previous album, NME wrote: “‘As The Love Continues’ is an album that opens beautifully but falls short at times during its second half. Then again, the whole record works so much better in a live setting – and will continue to do so when Mogwai finally hit the road again.”
