Mr. Beast

I write very few reviews, mainly because I believe musical appreciation is very, very subjective and that written reviews generally do not translate well into something useable for most readers. In any event, I like a lot of different types of music and have seen many different shows, which I will not bore you with here. However, I am so impressed with Mogwai's latest tour that I felt compelled to briefly write my comments and impressions, to use as you see fit.

I had no experience with Mogwai until I saw them live, and now I'm completely hooked. This happens maybe once a decade for me, and usually the band is more well known, and it has always taken me a much longer time to appreciate said bands. I was stunned from the first note of their opening song. I found Mogwai's latest tour and Mr. Beast to be a profound and moving production. For me, their music and production is some of the best I've ever heard. Mr. Beast is now a permanent fixture in my CD players, but it is hard to duplicate the live impact and sound quality of a Mogwai show.

IMHO, Mr. Beast is a natural progression for Mogwai, and is one of their best achievements to date. If you are down with this genre of music, you will not be disappointed with Mr. Beast. Play it very, very loud on a powerful system to approximate their live impact. If you like Mr. Beast, you will love their shows. The only criticism I have of Mr. Beast and Mogwai's shows, as I've commented to anyone who was interested, is that they're too darned short.

IMHO, this is one of the best albums and tours of '06. I wish them every success.

When we first heard Mogwai's Young Team record almost a decade ago, we were knocked on my a--. That was exactly what I had been itching to hear but just didn't know it. Epic near metal post rock, dramatic and ultra dynamic, soft / loud moody indie rock epics. Taking bits and pieces from the Pixies and Slint and other bands that came before but making them into something wholly new and unique.

And thus was spawned band after band, from Godspeed to the current crop of metallic post rock to the brooding instrumental indie rock of bands like Explosions In The Sky. All of them owe a massive debt to Mogwai, and Young Team in particular. After Young Team, Mogwai continued to do what they did arguably better than anyone else, each record a subtle variation on the last, one was more consistantly louder, one was softer and dreamier, the next was a "return to the ultra dynamism of Young Team" the next was something completely new and different. Ultimately though, they all sounded like Mogwai, and if there was such thing as a cd that held 12 hours of music, they all could have come from that single 12 hour album. But who was complaining? Not me. I loved the sound of Mogwai, and didn't want them to change, sure I would have dug another Young Team, but it was joy to get a new Mogwai record every time, that was instantly familiar, but had enough new stuff going on that it kept things interesting.

And so it went for almost a decade, which brings us to Mr. Beast. And on the one hand, it perfectly keeps with the pattern, it's most definitely Mogwai, sonically there's no doubt about that, but on the other, this is a very weird record. For Mogwai at least. To begin with, the songs are all pretty short, none break the six minute mark, most hover at around four, but the devil is in the details, and you know how the devil always has the best music...

The sound on Mr. Beast is much more dense and polished, some songs are straight up guitar heavy shoegazing rockers, some are haunting lullabies with programmed drums and lap steel guitars. A couple tracks sound almost like Coldplay with balls (and bigger guitars), there's lots of piano, in fact the first song is almost entirely piano driven, as are a couple later on in the record, there are some very Flaming Lips moments, lush pop with BIG drums, some bits of Polvo-like angular indie jangle, even some full on metal riffing, but they all sound like Mogwai. And that's the key. It all sounds so effortless, so perfect. Not in a bad way, in that special way that few bands ever achieve. It's like if Mogwai suddenly decided to do a note for note cover of Brooks And Dunn or Pink or Slayer or anybody, it would STILL sound like Mogwai, or if they decided to only play skiffle or bluegrass or polka, you'd still hear it and immediately know it was Mogwai, and it would be really really good.

It's that effortlessness that makes this record so good. Like their records before Mr. Beast, familiar enough to fit comfortably in the canon, new and weird enough to make me love them all over again.

I've been living with Mr. Beast for almost 24 hours now, and I'm still completely stunned. The CD hasn't left my player, whether that's been the one in my car, at home, or on my computer. I'm a Mogwai noob -- I've heard of them before but never really listened to any of their CDs. And now I'm setting aside the Radiohead, the Sigur Ros, and the miscellaneous electronica and ambient CDs I own to make room for the huge sonic space Mr. Beast wants to take up.

The lyrics are few, but that's okay -- glance at the title of each track before the track plays and let it whirl around in your mind like a mantra, and a detailed picture of something will come to mind. I especially like track #6, "Friend of the Night". On this track guitar and drums swap duties keeping time, echoing the ticks of a clock counting down the midnight hours. Meanwhile, piano with generous use of damper pedal takes flight on the melody backed by a guitar that sounds like it could have been wielded by Sigur Ros' J?n ??r Birgisson. The net effect is a perfect track for driving down the streets of an urban wasteland at four in the morning when you know sunrise is just a couple hours away.

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