MR. BEAST

To this point I had never purchased a Mogwai album on its initial release. I have heard their albums all right, but the band never pushed any of the right buttons, and quite frankly, they bored of me, or I was just too lazy. One of them anyway. Mr. Beast was interesting to me to the point where some hardened fans were claiming the band were running on empty, slamming this album for its lack of progress. Some would claim that the band had run out of ideas. I always thought mogwai just played, playing on ideas, and on Mr. Beast they play. Some of the themes of previous albums, certain narrated stuff, just got in the way of the music for me. Perhaps I bought Mr. Beast because the hard core legion of Mogwai fans seemed unhappy with it. The album was certainly pleasing to my ears. The pieces on Mr. Beast are condensed and concise. There is still that rapid flow of emotions being relayed, as the band emphasise on the two opening cuts, "Auto Rock", a real slow burner, and the emphatic "Glasgow Mega Snake", a tune bursting at the seams with mega guitar playing and a title that is a hot contender for best song title in the world ever! If such a dumb contest ever exists at all! Mr Beast is an album that just may attract a new generation of fans to this Scottish outfit. The first few Mogwai albums were held close by a tight knit community, and I for one could never grasp onto, but with Mr. Beast I feel comfortable that I have stepped in at the right time. And after going through the bands back catalog it is the first album by Mogwai I have truly warmed to, I may even go out and purchase some of their older stuff.