Mogwai – The Bad Fire – 2025
The Bad Fire is the 11th studio album by the band Mogwai. As per usual, I have very little experience with them. It seems like every kind of music, every album I write about is more or less an unknown chapter to me. Of course, in a way, it is. That’s the nature of things — you hear something new that you’ve never heard before. But I have so little experience with a lot of these bands that I first have to figure out what the heck I’m even listening to.
It was so much easier back in the day, when genres were simple. They were either rock or they were not. They were either metal or not. They were either pop or not. These days, everything must be mixed together and new genres are created all the time. Or so it seems.
The Bad Fire is rock
The Bad Fire — and Mogwai as a band — are definitely rock, there’s no doubt about that. But what kind of rock is not so easy for me to determine. According to Wikipedia, it’s post-rock. I’m not familiar with that concept. I would rather label The Bad Fire as art-rock or space-rock, even though I’m not sure what those terms even mean, or if those genres officially exist. But why shouldn’t they? I don’t think I could come up with a new, unheard-of genre even if I thought about it all day.
Do I like it? Well, it’s not something I would normally listen to. I find it kind of pretentious, which is a bit of a turn-off for me. On the other hand, there’s certainly nothing bad about it. You just have to be in the right mood. When I listened to it the first time a few days ago, I thought it was mostly strange. Well, not strange in a Frank Zappa or Butthole Surfers kind of way, but certainly not easily accessible.
This time, I enjoy it a bit more. Whether that has something to do with my mood being in a somewhat better place, or that I got a decent night’s sleep, might be up for debate. It’s still nothing fantastic to my ears, but certainly nothing that made me want to throw up. I guess it’s pretty decent. Not really my thing, though, as I feel there’s not enough melody and, as I said, it’s a bit too pretentious.
