Come On Die Young by Mogwai

Come On Die Young, Mogwai's second album, came out on Chemikal Underground on 29 March 1999, with Matador handling it in the States, and it's the sound of a Glasgow band deliberately turning down. Chasing something sparser, they listened hard to the Cure's Seventeen Seconds, Slint's Spiderland, Low, Nick Drake and the For Carnation, then spent three weeks at Tarbox Road Studios in Cassadaga, New York, with Dave Fridmann. It's also the first Mogwai record with multi-instrumentalist Barry Burns on board, joining Stuart Braithwaite, Dominic Aitchison, Martin Bulloch and John Cummings.

The mood is hushed and withholding, slow-motion instrumentals where the silences do as much work as the guitars, and the label talked them into making it longer. "Cody" is the outlier, almost a pop song, slow and sinuous with a clear melody and weeping slide guitar. "Christmas Steps" and "Ex-Cowboy", already road-tested on the Young Team tour, finally got cut. Rock Action came next.

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