Mogwai – they’re a rum bunch, aren’t they? From their Blur: Are Shite T-shirts from a couple of years back to their thoughts on James Blunt ("I have spewed blood down dirty toilets with more talent than him"), Mogwai always have a soundbite at the ready.

Similarly, Mogwai have a nifty way with track names – you don’t see Corinne Bailey Rae writing songs called Glasgow Mega-Snake, do you? But what about Mr Beast, the new album by Mogwai? Does it do justice to the band who once said of Chris Martin, "’People are fed up with us and so are we,’ he said. No shit fuckface’"?

Let’s find out…

Of all bands, Mogwai (CDs) know the importance of names. They know that
you can’t call an album Mr Beast unless it’s a giant monster of a
thing. Luckily for them, it is. Doomy opener Auto Rock kicks things off
nicely, a gentle gliding intro swiftly turning into an ultra-disturbing
funeral march that ends with the sound of – we imagine – a murderer
hammering on your bedroom door at 4am in the middle of a rainstorm.

Mr Beast is the fifth Mogwai album, and it really shows. Auto Rock
is followed by the terrifying would-be slasher movie soundtrack Glasgow
Mega-Snake, but where once Mogwai would have relentlessly pounded out a
whole album of this kind of crushing riffery, track three – Acid Food -
sees Mogwai turn into the Bontempi Spiritualized. It’s beautiful, all
slide guitar and actual singing. You can literally feel yourself
unclench as it begins. They’ve mastered tension and release. Clever
boys.

In actual fact, it’s during the quieter moments of Mr Beast that you
realise what a phenomenal band Mogwai can be. Team Handed is nothing
less than Sigur Ros performing a post-rock version of the Hamlet advert
theme-tune, while Emergency Trap is so spare and fragile that it hardly
even exists at all.

Cream of the crop, however, is I Chose Horses, a gorgeous, sad
number that features a keyboard contribution from composer Craig
Armstrong – a man who could cover The Wheels On The Bus Go Round And Round in a way that
would make grown men burst into tears. Add a mournful sighing Japanese vocal from
Tetsuya Fukagawa of hardcore band Envy and you’re left with something
that will haunt you long after it has finished.

Then Mr Beast ends with a final thrash through We’re No Here, just
to shake you out of whatever peaceful meditative state you’ve found
yourself in. The contrary buggers.

Mr Beast by Mogwai, then. The best album you can’t hum along to we’ve heard in a while.

[review by Stuart Heritage]