Ex-Tabula Rasa

Mogwai - Mogwai Fear Satan

#Themesong - Over eight minutes

In the last few years the word ‘epic’ has been overused to the point of losing all meaning. A while ago I saw some kid trip over while walking down the street and his friend said it was an “epic fail”. ‘Epic’ used to be a book that came in several volumes, or a film that used an entire country’s population as extras, or a years-long journey across continents. Now it’s a slight gravity-induced error.

That said, I have no aversion to calling Mogwai Fear Satan ‘epic’. This song is sixteen minutes of build-up, grab-you-by-the-collar-shouting-in-your-face noise and morning-after-esque comedown. If you were to use this tune to soundtrack a short film, your film would begin with several minutes of the cast walking in slow motion, followed by an intense Sucker Punch-inspired fight scene, followed by everyone dying on the ground until the song finished. Then you would die after watching it because human brains are not wired to make sense of such things.

It is a scientifically proven fact that if you listen to nothing but Mogwai Fear Satan while revising for an exam, when you write the exam your short answers and essays will consist of nothing but several pages of carefully written-out screaming and all of your multiple-choice question answers will be “E: All and none of the above AT THE SAME TIME”. Your marker will be unable to give you any grade other than 100%.