Photo credit: Antony Crook

SCOTTISH post-rock giants Mogwai are leading the race for the Number One spot in this week’s Official Albums Chart.

The Glasgow outfit released their tenth studio album ‘As The Love Continues’ last week on 19th February. If it reaches the top spot, it will mark the band’s first ever Number One album since forming in 1991.

It will also be their third consecutive top ten album following 2014’s ‘Rave Tapes’ and 2017’s ‘Every Country’s Sun’.

With a few days to go until the final charts are revealed, Mogwai are ahead of their competitors by a small margin. After coming in at Number 1 in the Midweek Chart update, there are now only 2,500 sales between themselves and rapper Ghetts.

The band’s Stuart Braithewaite has tweeted “THIS IS NOT A DRILL. In scarcely believable news we are currently the biggest selling album in the UK. If you haven’t bought it and want to, can you please do it before Friday? Not getting my hopes up too much but…bloody hell.”

Meanwhile, Scottish bands, artists and radio DJs have all been tweeting their support. The Twilight Sad commented “Our joint fave noise lords Mogwai are sitting atop the charts atm and we want to keep it that way. Head to https://store.mogwai.scot to buy before Friday. If you can spare £10, buy a copy for a pal you haven’t hugged in ages. Make it happen, fans of The Twilight Sad”

Alex Kapranos, The Cure’s Robert Smith, actor Elijah Wood, comedian Limmy and many more have all voiced for the support and the hashtag #Mogwai4number1 has been trending since yesterday.

The Glasgow-rooted band released their first album ‘Mogwai Young Team’ in 1997 and have since gone onto amass a cult following all over the world. With ten albums now under their belt, they have toured with The Cure, released a series of acclaimed film soundtracks (namely Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait) and have won awards for their renowned live shows.

‘As The Love Continues’ is the latest in a long list of career highlights and follows hot on the heels of their recent soundtrack work for Sky Atlantic’s ZeroZeroZero,

Recorded remotely with producer Dave Fridmann, the band’s told NME in an interview this January that the album was very “positive” and couldn’t be further from a “pandemic record”.

The memories of the pandemic will always be coupled with the memories of making this record,” he said. “Making the album was the happiest I’ve been during the pandemic. We had to find a way through it. We were meant to be travelling to America to record in person with Dave Fridmann, and we ended up doing it via Zoom in a studio in Worcestershire. It was great, and I’m not complaining about any of it – we made the best of a weird situation.”

Mogwai’s ‘As The Love Continues’ is out now. You can purchase the album HERE.