It’s a remarkable balancing act. It could easily be a capitulation to maturity – the alt-rock equivalent of doing that blues covers album – but in fact, the nod to the past is mixed with the sonic intensity of Mogwai’s natural style in a way that hits really hard.
The group's 10th album ... bristles with the unruly energies that enlivened their younger incarnation.
One of their most powerful and cohesive statements to date.
‘As The Love Continues’ is Mogwai at their best, and is possibly their most consistent record since 2006's ‘Mr Beast’.
Mogwai have managed to write the most quintessentially “Mogwai” sounding album, while remaining fresh, exciting and original. They’re masters of their craft and As The Love Continues is one of their more enjoyable records in years.
It may have taken Mogwai 25 years to open up like this, but it was well worth the wait: As the Love Continues is another peak in their long and influential career.
Like ghosts in steel toe-capped boots, these tunes occupy a tough mist of their own, sometimes poppy and sometimes very much not. A very good record.
The album is a world to get lost in, a world of the shimmering melancholia of The Cure, the spatial adventures of post punk and the subtle moods, textures and shifts in sound that Mogwai have become the magicians of.
Another high water mark in Mogwai's irresistible rise.
Though Mogwai mavens may recognise the terrain, the routes mapped across As The Love Continues are often fresh.
As The Love Continues has all of their hallmarks (the plaintive lulls, the booming peaks, the whirling anger) but as tried-and-trusted as those structures are, there are a few unexpected subtleties that make Mogwai’s tenth album a surprising listen.
After seven soundtracks, a plethora of quality EPs, plus remix, live, and radio compilations, Mogwai hit another inimitable height with their tenth album, As the Love Continues.
The aptly named As the Love Continues cements their post-rock dynasty, and bridges their ever-mutable sound into yet another.
Mogwai have been the masters of straddling delicate subtly and all out, massive walls of sound since the mid-nineties and ‘As The Love Continues’ carries on this rich vein of sonic expression.
‘As The Love Continues’ is an instrumental masterclass.
It's a continuation of their bombastic instrumental rock, adding enough new experiments to keep things interesting, but staying close enough to their well-hewn sound to ensure a cosy familiarity.
The results are gloriously brash, gritty and unbridled.
As the Love Continues is an album of incremental changes and monumental sounds.
Twenty-four years on from opening their account with Mogwai Young Team, and they’re still kicking; still into it; still making music that’s bigger than words and wider than pictures.
Overall, As the Love Continues ends up as one solid album that does a great job blending the Mogwai we are accustomed to into a friendlier direction.
The Scottish band is on familiar ground, patiently building mountainous songs suffused in nameless sadness, but they sound energized by the darkness—and refreshingly resistant to self-seriousness.
While Mogwai’s dedicated fanbase will assuredly welcome these new songs with open arms, others may just have to accept that they’re playing by their own rules from here on out.
The Scots paint widescreen scenes of beauty and movingly pay tribute to the late musician David Berman, though these songs are more suited to the stage.
Make no mistake, As the Love Continues isn’t a bad album. It’s just not good by the band’s usually impeccable standards.
As the Love Continues could have been a much different record if it embraced the ugliness and confusion of our world in the era of COVID-19. Instead, the band decided to stay life-affirming and stick with the script. Yes, that is a lost opportunity but, luckily, the record has enough good tracks that we’ll be well-fed until the band enters the studio again.