Mogwai – Rave Tapes

Ladies and gentlemen your attention please, what we are about to witness is a dark tale of reversed metamorphosis. The fable of the creature was first created before being seized upon by beings in human form and against all will and repugnant anger forced to retrace its triumphant steps back to whence it began. The tale begins with a creature of such blandness and unoriginality that it is an affront to the eye and ear. Evolution takes hold and propelled by the substances and conditions it was warned against encountering the beast begins to emerge. No amount of forewarning and pronouncement telling of calamity and untold volatility can deviate the being from its ultimate destiny. Still the warnings are ignored and the bleak destiny arrives at the point where all order breaks down and divine retribution is disseminated.

This, however, is not the fable, this is lacking in more virtuosity than any fable could uphold.  It begins with the opening line claiming to be, “Bigger than words and wider than pictures,” and prophesising that “If the stars had sound then this would be it.”  The closing of the first act perhaps is in indicating that all is not well as we are told of its fear of the dark lord.  By the time we get to the second act, a glimpse of the beast is caught under the beckoning call for us to die at an early age.  It is now merely a shadow, as the form of the beast is already beginning to fade from view, never to tread the sacred path again.  The closing act (if that’s what this is?) is the completion of the reverse metamorphosis and has left the demon completely exorcised of any power, imagination and noxiousness that attracted us to him in the beginning.

The epilogue statement proclaims that the beast must first be found; he then must be fed beyond the witching hour, anointed with holy water and led in to the light.  Amen.