The fifth album by Glasgow's renowned post-rock outfit Mogwai is a full-circle return to form, echoing the sound and structure of their brilliant debut. With stretches of ambient, expansive beauty next to straightforward headbangers, it's also some of their most varied and exciting work yet.

Mr. Beast opens with the slow, piano-driven Auto Rock , a long build that really exemplifies the band. The crescendo grows and grows for four minutes, the drums mark the downbeats like a war march, and you'll be holding your breath in the seconds of silence between tracks...

Until Glasgow Mega-Snake . Every time I listen to this and hit 1:55, I turn up the volume until it hurts my ears. The band falls into this absolutely killer groove, which makes you forget about any genre descriptors like "art-" or "post-." On this one they just rock, hard.

And then Acid Food . This is one of the few Mogwai songs with vocals, but here they're really just another texture next to the twangy guitar and processed drum beat (which makes me think of fireworks). It's a great song, but at the end when everything drops out but a slide guitar it becomes absolutely sublime.

The fourth track, Travel Is Dangerous , was featured in the 2007 documentary White Light/Black Rain: The Destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. That should tell you something: it's heavy, dark, emotional, and epic. The guitars tear forth, carrying the song through a screaming climax to its heaving, damage-surveying resolution.

Overall Mr. Beast has a strangely hypnotic effect, as if it were recorded in that place between coma and consciousness. Or maybe while on some excellent Glasgow drugs. Whatever. It totally works. It's time to discover Mogwai -- or fall back in love all over again.  [ Kerrang! ]

Mr. Beast demands very little of you; it is raw emotion with only as much context as you bring to the table. Being hypnotized by music is a rare privilege, and I highly recommend you take 43 minutes, sit back, and let Mogwai do its thing.

Additional Tracks:
Friend Of The Night
I Chose Horses