:: Track Listing

1. Hunted by a Freak
2. R U Still in 2 It
3. New Paths to Helicon Pt II
4. Kappa
5. Cody
6. Like Herod
7. Secret Pint
8. Superheroes of BMX
9. New Paths to Helicon Pt I
10. Stop Coming to My House

:: Record Review

Mogwai

Mr. Beast
(Rock Action/Play It Again Sam/Matador; 2006)

Rating: 79%
Combined Rating: 76%


Start from the beginning, then: the first few seconds of "Auto Rock" feature a spare, swelling piano melody. This is familiar territory for Mogwai, but here things are turning different, unexpected. For one thing, it's noticeably more polished. An arpeggiator hums quietly in the background, analog synthesizers provide ambience. At first blush, one's forgiven for thinking it doesn't sound that dissimilar from Songs of Faith and Devotion era Depeche Mode. Of course, the song builds: a single drum hit prods it forward in half notes, the synths give way to tonal guitar distortion, the drum gets louder and so does the piano. What immediately strikes me is that the volume never overtakes the song: this is a dynamic piece of work, but the dynamics provide a fertile ground to the melody, inflating it and deflating it, rather than the song existing as a frame for dramatic tension. The melodic underpinning, then, does the work the band has done on its last three records: it's hypnotic, full of space, somewhat savage and with a ragged beauty not heard since EVOL.

Prior to the band's last three records was Young Team, which, according to the party line, had exactly one good idea, but it was played brilliantly: slow, patient post-rock, equal measures Slint and the Smashing Pumpkins, with very soft passages and incredibly loud passages. The intervening records have rarely eclipsed that record. They took the sudden-crescendo idea to a ludicrous extreme on Come on Die Young, where the band tinkers for forty-five minutes before the righteous "Christmas Steps" comes home and shits in the bed. That was true if you only saw Young Team in terms of volume. Because, volume aside, much of the band's signature approach on that record rarely wavered: a lulling melody played on the bass guitar, languid pacing, full notes and echo galore. What did change was the band's songwriting. It became much more angular, and the emphasis shifted to minor keys and droning chords. Their music, as it became quieter, also became much more doom-laden, even if they did retain song titles such as "Superheroes of BMX" and "Stop Coming to My House."

But everyone likes loud guitars, and Mogwai have explicitly set out to rock with Mr. Beast. So, enter track two, the awesomely named "Glasgow Mega-Snake." This reads like an inverse of the Young Team blueprint: all pistons firing immediately out of the box, dense guitar interplay with the volume turned up. The beat drops half way through for a brief Black Sabbath riff, before becoming quiet for a few seconds. It roars again before cutting out suddenly and succinctly, surely a first in the Mogwai canon. Supreme in the fuzz pedal work-out, though, is closer "We're No Here." Sounding like a cross between tour mates Isis and label mates Envy, the band plays impossibly slow and heavy, detuned guitars and high-pitched riff in tact.

So this is Mogwai finally arriving at Phase III, in which Our Heroes Rock as Hard as We've Always Wanted Them? Well, not so fast. Mr. Beast features the band's first bona fide metal songs and is their most engaged record since at least Come On Die Young, but it only catches Mogwai going to that place. While those songs are likely to be the focus of discussion for this record (and rightly so) there are only two of them. The rest of the record finds them fine tuning ideas found on their previous records. "Auto Rock" is sublime, but it is essentially a better executed version of "Moses, I Amn't" from Happy Songs from Happy People, itself a better executed version of the Rock Action cut "Sine Wave." The same goes for "Folk Death 95," which for the world feels like a condensed reading of "Rats of the Capitol."

The result is that we have a transitory album, but also a typically beautiful and subtle one. "I Chose Horses" may be the band's outright prettiest song since "R U Still N 2 It," where Envy's Tetsuya Fukagawa speaks Japanese over a puddle of echo and major chords, with piano accompaniment by noted composer Craig Armstrong. "Friend of the Night" is a non-starter as a lead-off single. It features a fine drum pattern from Martin Bulloch, who's off- beat snare hits boxes the song in for the verses and then blows it open during the chorus, but its piano passage and guitar harmonics make it feel suspended in air, better suited for mid-album development. A better choice would've been "Travel is Dangerous," which features Stuart Braithwaite's best vocals since "CODY," and has loud guitars during the chorus and a traditional Mogwai sound during the verses.

A personal note for the finale: I first heard Mr. Beast during a stretch of thirty-five consecutive days of rain. It was night and I was driving my partner home from work, and it was pouring. This wasn't typical Washington drizzle, but a fucking downpour, and there we were doing 80 on I-5. The album struck me as a perfect accompaniment to the weather: the eerie beauty of "Auto Rock," abject terror in "Glasgow Mega-Snake," pedal steels invoking languid calm during "Acid Food." Maybe it's all the echo, but Mogwai's music has always struck me as coming through rain. Things can be more subdued during the rain (no one is out, the sky is grey, flowers droop) or more frenzied (traffic accidents, people hurrying out of the rain, flowers need water and thus grow, let's not even go into thunderstorms), but even at its dreariest and static, there's still life in still life, and I can think of few bands other than Mogwai that capture this. Mr. Beast is also fitting for drives through the rain: before it arrives to its destination, it contemplates the scenery on a long journey. Christopher Alexander :: 2 March 2006 |