NIGHT RAIDER

After being really disappointed with their 2010 release "I, Vigilante" I have to say they redeemed themselves in my eyes with "Night Raider" released the year before in 2009. I just like pretty much everything on here and it really reveals why people have them either under Psychedelic or Post Rock because both are here, a nice blend. MOGWAI's bass player is part of this band that is from the UK and as usual there is a rather large cast of musicians and sounds on display.

Check out the song titles like "Born For Nothing", "Onwards Ever Downwards", "A Lack Of Common Sense", "Trust No One" and "I Am free, Today I Perish" so much negativity which makes the opener "Time Of Ye Life" so funny as we get 3 1/2 minutes of teaching from a motivational speaker on how to live a positive life. Reminds me of that recurring skit on Saturday Night Live where buddy talks to himself in the mirror about how great he is and so on. While the guy is speaking here we get sparse and relaxed guitar which continues when he stops as it blends into "Born For Nothing". Percussion is added and eventually it picks up and gets louder. I like this. It settles back around 6 1/2 minutes then builds. Check out the guitar after 9 1/2 minutes. Love the bass after 12 minutes. Somewhere the song changes to "Paranoid Arm Of Narcoleptic Empire" and it continues to be trippy. Synths will join in and then a calm at 14 minutes. The trippy becomes powerful around 16 1/2 minutes then it will wind down.

"Wendigo" is relaxed with sparse guitar but when the guitar steps aside I hear Post Rock. "Bat Stack" is piano and percussion to start then it changes as we get some horns giving a bit of a bluesy feel starting before 2 minutes. A couple of shorter tracks are next starting with rough vocals, accordion, trumpet and more on the first one, followed next by a catchy vocal track that I like. Someone is yelling to open "A Lack Of Common Sense" and there's plenty of noise too before a calm after a minute with picked guitar and reserved vocals. Haunting start to "Trust No One" followed by vocals and a second guitar. The closer is melancholic with piano and atmosphere and it's quite spacey to end it.

Probably rated "I, Vigilante" too low and this too high but for my tastes there's a huge difference in these two albums.