Mogwai have dispensed with noise. This is not necessarily a bad thing. The scant material of post-"Loveless" MBV (e.g. "Incidental Harmony", "We Have All the Time In the World") suggest that they too had started to smooth out the rough edges of their sound. "Rock Action" kicks off with the astounding "Sine Wave", which marries the lightness of stuff like "Tuner" with the industrial squelch of NIN's "The Downward Spiral", but it all calms down from there. Live, "You Don't Know Jesus" and "2 Rights Make 1 Wrong" were a blur of white noise and electronics. On record they frequently tease an explosion but do not deliver (much like the role of "May Nothing But Happiness Come Through Your Door" on "CODY"). The remainder of the album barely ruffles a feather, as Mogwai stake their claim to dreamy folk-rock a la the calmer moments of Flying Saucer Attack. "Rock Action" leaves the same impression that "CODY" might have -- had the latter consisted only of its first eight tracks. But one of "CODY"'s main strength was the *buildup" to the delivery of that explosion in the final thirty minutes. "Rock Action" features plenty of the buildup, but a lack of the payoff that would have resulted had they tacked on fifteen minutes of "My Father, My King" as track nine.