Mogwai - Atomic (2LP)

Mogwai’s Atomic arrived on 1 April 2016, a studio reimagining of the score they wrote for Mark Cousins’ documentary Atomic: Living in Dread and Promise. It is Mogwai in widescreen mode, but not in the way of their old crescendo-and-crash post-rock playbook. This one leans into synthesisers, tape glow and a patient pulse, the kind of sound that makes you feel like you are watching history flicker past on a lightbox. The band took what they debuted alongside the film in 2015 and rebuilt it at their Castle of Doom studio in Glasgow, letting the pieces breathe as a stand-alone record rather than a strict cues-and-stingers soundtrack.

There is a precision to it that suits the subject. Titles like U-235, Pripyat and Little Boy draw a straight line to the nuclear age, yet the music refuses to be didactic. Ether opens with a tender melody that glows like first light on concrete. SCRAM, named for an emergency reactor shutdown, beats with a careful, humming urgency. Bitterness Centrifuge and Weak Force do what Mogwai have always done well, which is hold tension in a glass until your hands shake. It is all synth-forward, with Barry Burns’ keyboards and electronics often carrying the lead while guitars sit back as texture and colour. You still hear the band’s fingerprints in the way they stack harmonies and let notes hang, but the toolkit has shifted, and it suits them.

Atomic landed as their first release after longtime guitarist John Cummings left in late 2015, and you can feel the pivot. The spaces where serrated guitars once roared are now filled with organ tones, sequenced arpeggios and small percussive ticks. Instead of forcing a roar, Mogwai lean into glow and afterglow. It is a reminder that they have always been more interested in mood than genre. On Pripyat, named for the abandoned city near Chernobyl, the melody moves carefully, as if stepping through dust. Little Boy is heartbreaking in its restraint, a glinting progression that never tips into melodrama.

Part of the fascination here is how the record works even without the film’s images. Mogwai have scored before, and they know how to build pieces that stand on their own. The sequencing is smart, with lift and release in all the right spots, and a closing run that leaves you wrung out but clear-headed. When you read back on the press around release, The Guardian praised its “eerie beauty,” and Pitchfork nodded to the band’s synth-heavy shift with a positive review. Those reactions make sense. Atomic is not trying to be a greatest-hits victory lap. It is a focused piece of work from a band that has learned to trust silence as much as noise.

Production-wise, the Castle of Doom touch is all over it. The low end is warm, the synths feel tactile rather than glossy, and the guitars are blended in like old film stock, scratched and sun-faded. You can almost picture the band hunched over a bank of keyboards, trimming frequencies until the music sits like a beam of light across a theatre. It is easy to imagine how these tracks played when Mogwai performed the score live with the documentary, the music threading the archival footage without overstepping.

For those who collect, Atomic vinyl is a beauty. The format suits the album’s patient pacing, and side breaks give the music a natural breath. If you are trawling a Melbourne record store on a Saturday, or checking where to buy Mogwai records online, this is one to bump to the top of your list. It sits neatly next to other Mogwai albums on vinyl, especially the more atmospheric corners of their catalogue, and it is the sort of thing you put on at night and let wash the room in soft neon.

Mogwai vinyl often rewards repeat listens, and Atomic is no exception. The first pass gets you the mood. The second and third reveal little motifs hiding in the corners, a synth figure tucked under a piano phrase, a bassline that only rises to the surface when the lights are low. In a world of playlists and skip-happy listening, this record asks you to stay with it and rewards the patience. If you are in Australia and keeping a running wish list for your next crate dig, put this high. Among vinyl records Australia buyers chase for late-night spins, Atomic holds its own, quiet but unshakeable, humming like a distant transformer long after the needle lifts.