Mogwai - Mr. Beast

Genre rock Publisher Matador Records External Links Official Website Matador Records

It was kismet that Mr. Beast, the latest release from Scottish five-piece Mogwai, came across my desk this week for two reasons. The first reason: I got involved in a discussion about whether it was lyrics or music that mattered most to me. I spouted off that I'm a lyric-centric music person and that at the end of the day it was the words that moved me. The second reason: this week I was reading a chapter of a textbook used in a fiction class I am taking and came across a passage that gave me pause. The passage, written by Janet Burroway, was this: "Music, paradoxically, the most abstract of the arts, creates a logical structure that need make no reference to the world outside itself. It may express a mood, but it need not draw any conclusions." Of the ten tracks on Mr. Beast only three have vocals, and so I was rather surprised to find myself emotionally moved in the absence of lyrics.

The music on the record varies from gentle melodic piano on "Auto Rock" to distorted guitar and crashing drums on "Glasgow Mega-Snake." Even when the songs build toward all-out hard rockers, it never sounds sloppy, remaining meticulous in structure and design. The emotion also builds organically and honestly and does not trick you into feeling an emotion in the way that many other songs do by building toward the chorus with a switch in key or soaring vocals. In the hands of able musicians the songs are allowed to spread out, breathe and mature like fine wine. The ten songs also inexplicably produce a soothing feeling even though there is nothing quiet about them.

Mogwai are known for their raucous live shows, but one wouldn't necessarily know that from listening to these ten tracks. The exception songs are "Glasgow Mega-Snake" and "Folk Death 95" which are the hardest rockers on the record, but the other tracks are more contained, making for a richer and more mature sounding record. Hard-core Mogwai fans might feel that the songs are a little too contained, but this checked sound might be why Mr. Beast has been labeled their most accessible record to date.

The record plays like a painting, mixing the darker colors of the spectrum with the lighter colors and using shadow and nuance in such a specific way that even without a lyrical story telling you what is going on, it allows the listener to devise their own crystal-clear image of what the song is trying to impart on its audience, something the album's artwork reinforces.

In a music world dominated by bands with vocalists who take us by the hand, Mogwai stands apart. Mr. Beast does what, according to Ms. Burroway, music is supposed to do; it expresses a mood while leaving us to draw our own conclusions.