Mogwai

Mogwai’s newest album Mr Beast is indisputably the Scottish quintet’s most beautiful to date. The characteristic soft-loud rock is still in effect, but the noise has heart and the songs, overall, are grabbier and more refined than on previous albums. Mr Beast meanders from gentle piano and spoken word to in-your-face guitar and drum noise with disturbing, distortion-filled crescendos. With this CD, Mogwai has become my perfect lover. The agenda is climax, but they don’t rush it. They back off at just the right times, allow you to relax, then blow your mind with a climactic rush of sound. Tetsuya Fukagawa (of Japanese hardcore band Envy) lends his voice to “I Chose Horses,” a synthesis of Japanese spoken word and Mogwai’s musical power. Incredible. If you have the bollocks, listen to Mr Beast and allow Mogwai to lure you into a lulled sense of false security and then, just as quickly, disrupt your world with monumental sound.