Mogwai
Mr. Beast

Mogwai’s hotly anticipated fifth studio album is finally due to hit the shelves in March, much to the delight of the band’s worldwide army of fans. Mr Beast is a concerted effort to move away from the loud/soft dynamic of earlier albums which has since been emulated time and again by the burgeoning post-rock troops to become a tired formula. Instead, it’s a return to the impenetrable barrage of distortion that made Mogwai a name to remember in the first place.

That said, however, they haven’t left behind their melodic sensibilities. This is an album of understated beauty and dissonant hope; an unprovoked attack on the soul, which paints an austere and bleak landscape and then malevolently and relentlessly assaults it with overwrought guitars and keyboards.

A highlight is the forthcoming single Friend of the Night. Debussy-esque pianos lead us through this intricate gem of a track, which evolves majestically from the tentative through to the ultimately triumphant. The melancholy and sparkling Team Handed slides into a delicious melting pot of sonic mastery, while the haunting lullaby Travel Is Dangerous, with its clandestine melodic guitars that come rolling off the fret boards leaves us in no doubt that discord has never sounded so appealing.

(Appeared in Record Collector March 2006)