“Music is bigger than words and wider than pictures” intoned a starry-eyed voice on Mogwai’s otherwise almost wordless 1997 debut, Mogwai Young Team. The Glasgow band’s mixture of sonic grandeur and spiky irreverence quickly established them as cult favourites, in opposition to the complacent tail-end of Britpop: goth in aesthetics and metal in spirit, but labelled “post-rock” because of their long, mostly instrumental tracks.
Ninety minutes in their deafening company under the low ceiling of the Highbury Garage, as part of the venue’s series of 30th-anniversary shows, is enough of a reminder that they are not really “post” anything, not deconstructing anything: they are a rock band, with riffs and choruses and a deserved reputation for making small rooms quake with noise.
