COME ON DIE YOUNG

"Come on Die Young" is the second full-length studio album by Scottish post-rock band Mogwai. The album was released through Chemikal Underground in March 1999. It´s the successor to "Mogwai Young Team" (also known as "Young Team") from October 1997.

The music style has changed much since the debut as "Come on Die Young" is a bit more restrained/subtle and the noisy distorted eruptions are very few (listen to "Christmas Steps" to hear an example of such an eruption). It´s predominantly a pretty mellow and atmospheric release. The album opens with the atmospheric/spoken work sampled "Punk Rock", which serves as an introduction to the album and then "Cody" kicks in. It´s the sole track on the album featuring vocals (if you discount the spoken word samples which appear throughout the album). It´s a mellow, minimalistic, and repetitive track, but it works pretty well. The remaining part of the album is purely instrumental atmospheric post-rock. Slow building, atmospheric, melancholic, and often repetitive in nature.

Upon conclusion "Come on Die Young" is a solid release, and it´s also quite bold to change your sound as much as Mogwai have done here. When that is said 12 tracks and a total playing time of 67:38 minutes are simply too much, when most of the tracks live in the same territory as far as timbre, tempo, and mood go, and only few of them stand out (the three above mentioned tracks are some of them). A 3 star (60%) rating is warranted.