It might have survived the Blitz, but Bexhill’s historic De La Warr Pavilion felt like it was being reduced to rubble by the crashing sound of Scotland’s post-rock pioneers on Friday night.
Facing down the crowd with their slow-building wall of noise, Mogwai’s intricate shifts from fragile beauty to savage aggression is just about as essential as live music gets.
Playing tracks from their new album Hardcore Will Never Die, But You Will and a raft of classics from their now sizeable back-catalogue, they crowned the night with a full rendition of the epic 16-minute Mogwai Fear Satan - complete with a rolling feedback outro to shred any eardrums left intact.
It might have been the pile-driving meltdowns that were left ringing in the crowd’s head, but it was Mogwai’s artistry with complex, densely textured soundscapes that continued to cement their place as the kings of alternative instrumental rock. Weaving the sound of four guitars around an evolving palette of distortion and effects, they were often at their most devastating during the whispered calm in the eye of the storm.
Delivering waves of frightening brutality with the most delicate of emotions - the apocalypse has never sounded so beautiful.
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