There was a time when the mere mention of the name Mogwai was enough to get me excited. Easily Scotland's finest band there for a while around "Young Team" and "Ten Rapid", their rather unique take on the whole instrumental post-rock sound spawned a legion of imitators (some of whom, like Explosions In The Sky were great bands in their own right), and influenced countless other bands in a hundred other genres.

Unfortunately, as great bands are sometimes wont to do, Mogwai began to get sloppy. 2006's "Mr Beast" was a huge disappointment, and their recent soundtrack work has been solid but not overly impressive. It even seemed like for a band that took such a fierce approach to innovation around the turn of the century, they had suddenly gone into autopilot. "The Hawk Is Howling" is not a return to the band's glory days, but at the same time it's a partial return to form, in that it sounds like the autopilot is off and there is someone behind the wheel again.

The new attention to detail is displayed on the opening track, I'm Jim Morrison, I'm Dead. While it doesn't built up to the epic crescendos of the band's earlier work, it does manage to move through a number of sections, each of which is different yet complementary to the others, suggesting a more prog-rock influence than the post-rock that this band is normally associated with. It's quite effective, and the mixture of strings, distorted guitar, and tinkling piano sounds makes it sound like the Mogwai of old.

There is variety on this album though, and tracks like Batcat prove that the band is still perfectly capable of just rocking out when they get bored of sculpting sweeping soundscapes. There is no subtlety whatsoever in Batcat, which is part of the whole appeal of the track, and it's easy to see why it was selected as the single and main promotional song for "The Hawk Is Howling. Other tracks like The Sun Smells Too Loud, with its upbeat, chirpy signature riff, mix the band's rock leanings with the keen ear for melody they have displayed from time to time.

Despite the vast improvement in the band's sound, it's still hard to hail this as a return to the band's best. The music is certainly just as intricate and elaborate as it has ever been, but there just isn't that same spirit that made albums like "Young Team" so memorable. It's not something that is quantifiable, and it may just be the band getting older and me getting more jaded, but a lot of this album, and in particular the tracks on the second half of the disc, just fail to get me excited.

With that said, this may just be the fact that I've heard so many bands trying to be Mogwai that when I hear the genuine article, it becomes hard to tell it apart from the imitators. "The Hawk Is Howling" is certainly a step in the right direction for the band, and while I doubt that they'll ever write another song as perfect as Helicon 2, I'm certainly happy for them to continue trying.