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TOYAH-BACKED SPOOK ROCKERS GO LAPTOP

adulation is all very well but you couldn't blame mogwai for feeling a bit uncomfortable that cartoon punker turned 'i'm a celebrity get me out of here' shit-diving spectacle toyah willcox now cites them as an 'influenthhh'. it's like finding out that will smith's new album is going to be influenced by sonic youth. still, at least stuart braithwaite and his band of mopey men know when it's time to move on: tonight's sturdy outing of tracks from the forthcoming 'happy songs for happy people' album takes an electronic flamethrower to their usual million-years-of-wibble/EXTREME AURAL DEATH formula.

with its 7.5 on the richter scale riff and hypnotic inferno of billowing guitar noise, 'ratts of the captial' is a future classic while the fractured electronica that decorates 'i know you are but what am i?' captures the band making their first genuinely convincing forays into laptop land. these are augmented by the pick of the back catalogue - 'helicon 2' remains the closest thing yet to a post-rock lullaby and the switch from quiet to loud during 'mogwai fear satan' still sounds like a split-second of biblical deliverance.

when it comes to playing live, mogwai's consummate sets manage to create a window looking into a beautiful, parallel universe; one in which slint and joy division are mandatory religions, words are a secondary method of communication and, crucially, blur are still shite.

hardeep phull