Happy Songs for Happy People

Happy Songs for Happy People is the fourth studio album from Mogwai Happy Songs for Happy People, is a befitting name for a summer record whose song titles allude to paranoia, vague threats, the Bible, boundless horrors and '80s hair metal. It sounds, glibly, like a Mogwai album, or at least like a band who have such a confident and accomplished understanding of what they want their music to be that all the old influences and comparisons seem more redundant now than ever before.

Happy Songs for Happy People is compact - just over 40 minutes - and extraordinarily skilful at sucking you in. The big crescendos don't come after long passages of quiet, they grow organically and stealthily. The metal power, the hardcore methodology, the pastoral prettiness are hard to separate any more. Rather, they exist in a state of grace that's moving and inspiring and all those other vague emotions music regularly promises, but rarely delivers.

It is without doubt Mogwai's most ambitious record to date; cinematic and panoramic in its scope; and saturated in melody. It marks a move further into subtler realms. It is the sound of band that is happy in themselves and confident in pushing the envelope forward. It should also be remembered that Mogwai are not, repeat not, dry, muso, knob-twiddling boffins. They thrive as a live band, leaving audiences drop-jawwed with their magisterial might.