Mr. Beast
Label: Matador
Rated: NONE
WorkNameSort: Mr. Beast
Mogwai’s ability to sound garden-fresh each time out never ceases to astonish, even a decade-plus into a career spent exploiting rock’s boilerplate soft-loud-soft dynamic as though it were in danger of being ripped from the universal musical playbook forever. Even the tropes these Scottish storm troopers repeatedly resurrect cyborg vocoders, unobtrusive string sections don’t lose their impact. The records manage to be different while remaining true to the group’s key aesthetic Rock Action was aimed at acoustic, low-key pastoral, while Happy Songs for Happy People was just plain pretty. Comparatively speaking, Mr. Beast is granite-heavy, its Olympian constructs resolving in noisy, barely-restrained blasts that are thoroughly life-affirming and dazzling. Those moments are interspersed with innocent piano intros and pleasantly uncharacteristic oddities like the pedal-steel amble of “Auto Rock” or “Travel Is Dangerous,” which slips with surprising ease into mid-’90s Weezer/Jawbreaker territory.
This article appears in Mar 1-7, 2006.