»Old songs stay ’til the end«, it says on »Cody«, the second track on this record, which is also getting older. It has been 15 years since the Scottish band Mogwai, founded in 1991, brought sadness and droning guitars together on their second album, and these absolutely do belong together. »Come On Die Young« begins with Iggy Pop’s definition of punk rock as »music that takes up the energies and the bodies and the hearts and the souls and the time and the minds of young men who give what they have to it and give everything they have to it« and ends with the reverent certainty of having witnessed the genesis of a punk rock masterpiece over almost 70 minutes. Although it’s called post-rock, the music by the Glasgow quintet is in no way inferior to the »raw power« of the Stooges. Rather, it is refined, transformed into great arcs of tension and finally sublimated. The music of early Mogwai, who leisurely shook off melancholy in the course of their career, traverses quiet valleys and roaring heights on »Come On Die Young«. It mostly gets by without words and has no need to hurry, but unfolds an eerie beauty even when it stands still. It seems at times to evaporate, to withdraw into its own innermost self, then rears up in the next moment with incomparable power and yet seems almost phlegmatic. »Come On Die Young« is one of two or three masterpieces created by this so often copied band. However, it is the definitive zenith that towers above all other high points, as the extensive bonus material on this reissue on the original Chemikal Underground label clearly shows. The demo version of a Mogwai song in 1999 would still be a perfectly mature song for other bands today. »Sad songs remind me of friends,« continues »Cody«. These sad, ear-splitting songs have become friends themselves over the years. They will stay until the end. Maybe even longer.
Yukimi
For You
Ninja Tune