After the wild success of their chart-topping lockdown album As The Love Continues – surely a world record wait for a breakthrough release – Mogwai deliver their 11th album, The Bad Fire.

The culmination of three years of hell – hence the nod to the fiery underworld in the title – and 30 years on from their mid-90s inception, the band taps into trauma and torment, both internal and external, resolutely forging ahead in their own inimitable way.

Less immediate than its predecessor, The Bad Fire starts tentatively and defiantly commits to the idea of a slow burn (sorry). Opener ‘God Gets You Back’ sounds like an outtake from the Escape From New York OST, paranoid and serpentine in equal parts, feeling its way in before more familiar motifs come into play.

‘Pale Vegan Hip Pain’ showcases Mogwai’s innate ability to commune music with the listener’s deep-seated feelings. A glimmering lead guitar line floats above keyboards and assorted electronica, drawing power from the song’s sense of wide open space.

Indeed, it’s no surprise that the band turned to American producer John Congleton, whose previous work with Explosions In The Sky and Sigur Ros can be heard all over the album. ‘If You Find This World Bad…’ takes on the mantle of those enormous soundscapes, building up to the kind of cacophonous precision that has become Mogwai’s trademark.

The band’s obsession with the infernal seems to have been sparked by Stuart Braithwaite’s recent deep dive into the world of William Blake – himself no stranger to apocalyptic visions – and there are moments here that speak to something dark and brooding.

Album highlight ’18 Volcanoes’ is perfect Shoegaze. Scuzzy, distorted, and emulating the best of My Bloody Valentine or Slowdive, this is what Blake could have heard in his head when putting paintbrush to paper. Even a relative outlier like ‘Hammer Room’ reminds us of where they used to reside musically, pulling at the thread of a sound three decades in the making.

Completing the story arc with the dreamy, off-kilter ‘Fact Boy’ cements all those years, working the gamut of feels and textures, every toy in the box brought out to play. After such a long journey, Mogwai may soon fit the criteria for the status of “national treasures”, but I’m not sure it’s a title they’ll look to adopt any time soon. I’ll leave it up to you to break it to them, okay?