How many records have Mogwai made by now? 25? 100? As many as can fit in an Ikea Expedit cubbyhole? Nine LPs, four live albums and 13 EPs, actually – or, to put it another way, one giant wave of crushing noise. And yet the Scottish post-rock veterans show no signs of slowing. Atomic is a reworked version of their soundtrack for BBC4’s Atomic: Living in Dread and Promise. As you might expect from the score to a documentary about nuclear panic – and also the healing power of technology – it’s futuristic and often dystopian. It’s hard to listen to the doomy industrial thud of SCRAM and not picture a nuclear reactor failing to power down, or on Pripyat, the ghostly remains of the Cherynobl disaster. But at the same time, Atomic feels lighter than usual: sunlit synths dapple Little Boy; minimal piano patters through the techno-edged U-235; and Are You a Dancer’s delicate, balletic strings are sublime. As pop culture continues to be obsessed with the end of the world, Mogwai make the perfect life-affirming doom-mongers. Long may they slay.
