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Jan 21, 2025Overall, The Bad Fire proves this legendary group can still produce moving, intelligent and vital work even as they embark on their fourth decade. As their lockdown-inspired success proved, Mogwai remain a guiding light in dark, troubling times.
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Classic Rock MagazineMar 11, 2025It's starkly, scarily beautiful and transcendent in places, chilling yet comforting in others. [Apr 2025, p.75]
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Feb 10, 2025The slow buildup provides a sense of valediction, with distorted layers reminding us of Mogwai’s love of volume, only to have a slow fade cap things off. The Bad Fire is a satisfying listen from disc to double disc.
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Jan 28, 2025The Bad Fire gives plenty of more ground to walk with and more layered depths to explore. It’s likely to stake some real estate in plenty of rotations worldwide, for those hoping for a follow up to 2021’s As The Love Continues that delivers on the same level. It’s ready for you.
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Jan 24, 2025Thirty years into their career, Mogwai remain as absorbing as ever, their fire undimmed.
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Jan 24, 2025It might be a smaller-scale album than As the Love Continues, but The Bad Fire is the sound of a band that's still making vital music 30 years after they formed.
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Jan 24, 2025Variously evoking euphoria and melancholy, awe and introspection, Mogwai’s latest triumph further cements their status as Great British originals.
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Jan 22, 2025The album’s centrepiece, meanwhile, is classic Mogwai in both title and sound (‘If You Find This World Bad, You Should See Some of the Others’), but for the most part here, the band have committed to subtle reinvention.
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Jan 21, 2025A terrific follow-up Mogwai’s No.1 smash.
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Jan 21, 2025Processing pain does not mean wallowing in it, of course. The only way out is through. Ultimately, The Bad Fire feels like an acknowledgement of that, burning out neither in scalding catharsis nor cold resignation, but the radiant glow of a future still unwritten.
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Jan 16, 2025To call it a mature album would be to take away some of the perennially youthful spirit of Mogwai, but it certainly achieves a crafted, discerning grace. However hellish it may have been, a baptism in The Bad Fire has clearly proved to be a renewing experience. [Feb 2025, p.86]
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Record CollectorJan 16, 2025Even on a record of many detours, the closing three tracks are uniquely surprising. [Jan 2025, p.104]
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UncutJan 16, 2025These 10 sheeting, luminous soundscapes lean into the band's considerable pop smarts as well as their soundtrack and post-rock mastery. [Jan 2025, p.39]
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Jan 16, 2025For those less inclined to kvetching, The Bad Fire is a rich, enveloping delight, a profoundly grim situation turned into music that’s graceful, striking and even optimistic.
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Jan 22, 2025For the most part, Congleton doesn’t push Mogwai anywhere they weren’t already heading, but in its home stretch, The Bad Fire proves this band of steely veterans can still disarm you by opening up surprising new dimensions to their sound.
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Jan 27, 2025There aren’t a whole lot of new sounds erupting on The Bad Fire for Mogwai, but when the songs hit, they’re virtuosically powerful. You just have to want to feel a certain way to appreciate them.
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Jan 21, 2025The Bad Fire wouldn’t rank among Mogwai’s finest achievements, but it does provide a portrait of a band still finding the new in the familiar. Amidst the many destructive fires in the world now, such artistry should be a comfort.
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Feb 3, 2025Although there are a handful of highlights, the group has settled into a comfort zone from which good tracks emerge effortlessly, but nothing outstanding.