Mr Beast

i'm a longtime fan of this band, getting into them after i discovered ten rapid. i've pretty much everything they've released. and this the first album by them that i never consider skipping ahead to the next track...a feeling i'll get maybe once or twice on all of their previous works.but as great as Mr. Beast is, i have just one issue with it: it lacks any 7-8+ minute epics. several of their longer songs are my favorites (MFMK, 2 rights..., helicon 1, ratts...) in fact, only 3 songs here eclipse the 5-minute mark. and the rest fall in the 3 and 4 minute window. they're all very very good, but a few seem to end just a little abruptly, before they can evolve from very good to simply incredible. if they would only extend some of the songs 1 or 2 more minutes each (glasgow mega-snake is a prime example), the album as a whole would be a masterpiece. this leaves me just a little frustrated, as several songs are just gathering their legs before the band decides to end them. it's unfortunate, realizing the real potential that's on here.nonetheless, it'll likely become my very favorite mogwai album. it's an excellent blend of their earlier heaviness and more recent experimentation with electronics and piano. it just falls 2-3 extended songs short of absolute greatness.

Such a great album.

Mr Beast is my favourite Mogwai album to date. It has a lot of noteworthy tracks, such as "Emergency Trap," "Friend of the Night," and "Folk Death 95." I got my order from Amazon nice and fast too. I don't regret a thing about this purchase.

I dont know why I waited so long to get this one but after listening to all of the Mogwai recordings this is the best one, it has more guitar than the stuff on "Hardcore...". Very good.

This could be their best album!! - i love it! - and on vinyl it is phenomenally powerful! Highly recommended.

Great vinyl, great deal with the customer. This not a review for the record vinyl. The music is excellent. This is a review about the vinyl pressing and the vinyl record. The vinyl record sounds great and the record arrived ok to my adress. thanks.

One of the best post-rock albums in history, a definitive must-have in your collection!

such an organic album. a must have for anyone that likes Mogwai.

Writing about Mogwai rarely does justice to the music contained within. Or maybe it's my chronic inability to write about (mostly) instrumental music. Either way 2006 saw the first Mogwai album for 3 years, which starts gingerly with Auto-Rock, entering on a piano sequence which builds, adding drums into a crescendo. It would be the perfect `walk-on stage' music for the band. The album then bursts forward with the explosive Glasgow Mega-Snake, which is pretty much like Mogwai gone heavy metal.Acid Food features electronic beats and steel guitar, and Stuart Braithwaite's vocoderized vocals. These elements should clash horribly but coalesce to produce a decent track, reminiscent of some of the tracks on Rock Action.What's noticeable about this album is that the tracks are shorter, and more concise, none of running longer than 5 and a half minutes, and most of them less than 4. This is not necessarily what you want from Mogwai, as one of their main strengths is their command of pacing and dynamics, in allowing a piece of music to carefully unfurl and evolve into something.Case in point is the track Travel Is Dangerous, which has the raw materials required to be an absolute epic, containing the classic Mogwai build up to heavy guitars, though it all happens rather quickly and the track ends in just 4 minutes.After the piano-led Team Handed, also 4 minutes but conversely, doesn't really need to be, we get Emergency Trap which pleasingly is 5 and a half minutes, with a nice build up and some stately piano parts with the help of some distorted guitars and heavy drums (hooray!). It's the track Travel Is Dangerous should have been.Emergency Trap has a blessed-out atmosphere and drifts along serenely, but this is shattered by Folk Death 95 which pounds along most pleasingly in a classic Mogwai vein with some very metallish guitars. This track also benefits form a proper build up as we are led into metal mayhem gradually, rather than dumped straight into it. I'd still like a longer version of this one though, as the heaviness ebbs away almost as soon as it starts. No Mogwai track should be only 3 and a half minutes long!I Chose Horses features Tetsuya Fukagawa from a Japanese hardcore band Envy reciting Japanese over a keyboard arrangement by composer Craig Armstrong but the overall effect leaves me a little nonplussed. However final track We're No Here is a nice heavy blast to end the album.It's a very solid album, for sure, but I wouldn't have complained if many of the songs were a lot longer. However the shorter nature of the songs might act as a handy starting point for those looking to discover this band. And, let's face it, who needs Sigur Ros, with these guys around?

Wasn't sure about this album when I first heard it but glad I stayed with it coz now I can't stop listening to it.

cool cool

Mr. Beast marks the long-awaited return of much-loved Scottish band Mogwai. On this, their, fifth album, the band display their mastery of both epic, skyscraper-razing post-rock (see `Glasgow Mega Snake') and understated, hypnotic melancholia (`Acid Food', `Friend of the Night'), as well as reaffirming the theory that vocals should be used sparingly for maximum effect: only three of the ten tracks on offer here feature any singing, and while Tetsuya Fukagawa of Japanese hardcore band Envy's spoken word contribution to `I Chose Horses' is unlikely to get the dancefloor pumping down at your local vodka bar, it is a gently moving experience representative of the album as a whole.At just ten tracks, and with none of the songs here breaking the six-minute barrier, `Mr Beast' is Mogwai's most concise album to date. It also marks a logical artistic progression, combining the best bits from previous albums, as well as building on their reputation as an awesome live band.The DVD that accompanies this version is a rather typical studio documentary, featuring snippets of interviews with the five members (in which they reveal who they think is the most handsome/talented member of Mogwai, and why it's probably not worth reading too much into the song titles) and clips of the recording process - a lot of which by their own admission is a bit "ho-hum." Still, worth watching at least once.Matt Pucci

A partir des années 2000, il devient difficile de faire du rock et que cela soit novateur. Beaucoup de groupes regardent dans le rétro et fomentent une musique qui a déjà été faite par les glorieux ainés. En moins bien de surcroit. Mogwai est l'un des rares groupes à proposer un rock réellement en phase avec son époque. On parle souvent de post-rock n'importe comment mais là, pour le coup, on peut en parler.Mogwai propose un rock atmosphérique, globalement sans paroles (seuls deux titres sont chantés sur cet album et un autre contient un récitatif dans une drôle de langue), qui dépeint notre morne quotidien actuel. Cet album est sorti en 2006 mais n'a pas pris une seule ride. Et pour cause...Le premier titre est donc un instrumental qui va développer un long et splendide crescendo. Ça prend tragiquement aux tripes avec trois fois rien et une petite ligne mélodique au piano. Sur tout l'album, le piano, ce sera pour les mélodies tandis que les guitares s'occuperont de remplir l'espace et trouer le silence. Un travail énorme est fait sur les textures de ces dernières et le groupe se révèle prodigieux dans l'art et la maitrise de l'utilisation des hauteurs de son. C'est ici que tout se joue pour Mogwai, derrière de maigrelettes et tristounettes ritournelles.Le deuxième titre, instrumental lui aussi, est une bourrasque grise et nébuleuse, pleine d'anxiété et de rage rentrée. Et si Mogwai se sert du hard rock, de l'indus ou même du trip-hop, jamais il ne bascule dans l'un de ces genres, se contentant d'y puiser des sons qu'il incorpore à merveille parce que de façon pertinente dans son univers sonore, un rock du vingt-et-unième siècle absolument sans équivalent.Et Mogwai se fait le chantre d'une musique volontiers monotone, reflet de notre quotidien blafard et sans espoir. Les titres de ce disque sont tour à tour beaux comme un escalator en panne, comme un bus en retard qu'on attend sous la pluie, comme un néon qui grésille et clignote par intermittence, comme une poupée sale et cassée abandonnée dans le caniveau, comme un lavabo qu'on bouche à force de vomir tout son saoul. Il y a certes des éclaircies mais elles sont mensongères, vite rattrapés par la réalité blême et mortifère. Mortifière conviendrait mieux. On s'agite en vain. Mais on ne peut s'en empêcher.Paradoxalement, écouter cet album fait du bien. Cette musique fait ressortir des émotions qu'on préférerait refouler mais qu'il vaut mieux ne pas longtemps ignorer. On sait que le combat est inutile mais, comme la chèvre de Monsieur Seguin, on ne peut s'empêcher d'aller contre sa nature et puis, allons, on respire encore. Sinon, la musique de Mogwai ne serait que du silence. Mogwai fait de la musique parce que c'est un groupe en vie, envers et contre tout. Faire du bruit permet de s'en assurer. Un album puissant. Mais alors, sinon, c'est foutu ? En tout cas, quitte à aller tout droit dans le mur, autant le faire en musique.