Personnel: Tetsuya Fukagawa (vocals).

Additional personnel: Dave McGowan (lap steel guitar); Craig Armstrong (keyboards); Tetsuya Fukagawa.

Audio Mixer: Tony Doogan .

Recording information: Castle Of Doom Studios, Glasgow, Scotland.

The first major Mogwai release to consist solely of songs less than six minutes long, MR. BEAST is an exercise in deliberate concision. Whereas many of the Scottish post-rock band's past glories have involved crushingly heavy riffs and/or beautifully delicate melodies unfurling in epic fashion, most of the tracks on this album get straight to the point, whether it's the three-pronged guitar attack of "Glasgow Mega-Snake" or the chiming slow-core breeziness of "Team Handed."

Given the reductive nature of this outing, guitarist/occasional vocalist Stuart Braithwaite and company don't bring any striking innovations to the table, but they do offer up some subtle sonic curveballs. The gorgeously plaintive "Acid Food," for example, mixes vocoder-filtered singing and programmed beats with a plaintive lap-steel line, while the near-ambient "I Chose Horses" features Japanese-language vocals by Tetsuya Fukagawa and keyboards by composer Craig Armstrong. Often sounding like a compressed fusion of the ensemble's startling YOUNG TEAM (1997) and frequently serene HAPPY SONGS FOR HAPPY PEOPLE (2003), MR. BEAST may leave some Mogwai diehards wanting more, but that elusive quality is exactly what makes it an intriguing record.

Possibly the most accessible yet sophisticated album Mogwai has released, Mr. Beast strips away most of the electronic embellishment of their recent work in favor of a back-to-basics sound that returns to and expands on the approach they pioneered on Young Team. Mr. Beast is also a surprisingly spontaneous-sounding album -- in the best possible sense, its freshness makes it feel like a recorded practice session and also helps give relatively delicate pieces like "Team Handed" the same amount of impact that heavy, searing tracks like the closer, "We're No Here," have. Interestingly, more of Mr. Beast tends toward the former kind of song than the latter; "Friend of the Night," "Emergency Trap," and the glorious, slow-burning album opener, "Auto-Rock," give the album an unusually refined, even elegant feel that is underscored by the prominent use of piano and lap steel in the arrangements. On songs like "Acid Food" and the magnificent "I Chose Horses" -- which features cavernously deep bass and spoken word vocals by Tetsuya Fukagawa from the Japanese hardcore band Envy -- Mr. Beast feels downright pastoral. However, Mogwai doesn't give up their heavy side entirely, as the aforementioned "We're No Here" and "Glasgow Mega-Snake" show; any song that has either "mega" or "snake" in the title should rock, and this one does, kicking off with a claustrophobic snarl of guitars that makes this one of the most intense pieces Mogwai has ever recorded. Mr. Beast manages to be immediate without sounding dumbed-down.. ~ Heather Phares

Rolling Stone (p.68) - 3 stars out of 5 -- "With its plodding tempo, slow-woven guitars, melancholy piano chords and moments of crashing loudness, 'Friend of the Night' is representative of much of the album."

Q (p.117) - Ranked #86 in Q Magazine's "100 Greatest Albums of 2006."

Uncut (p.96) - 3 stars out of 5 -- "MR. BEAST finds the Glasgow five-piece returning to a more primitive sound....The songs here are concise..."

Mojo (Publisher) (p.93) - 4 stars out of 5 -- "MR. BEAST yanks heartstrings as well as eardrums, best evidenced on 'Acid Fool', where Stuart Braithwaite's distorted vocals and a pedal steel guitar drizzle deliciously from the speakers."