When you're Mogwai, and you're writing a new album, restraint isn't a tactic that you're advised to pursue. While the band's back catalogue contains material that is subtle, complex, and intricate, most of the good stuff is also completely unrestrained. A band employing restraint wouldn't release ten plus minute monsters like Like Herod, Mogwai Fear Satan or My Father My King, but then Mogwai have always had the talent to make their grandiose ideas work. They've been able to match ambition up with ability, and the result has been some of the finest albums in the past ten years.

Which is why "Mr Beast" is such an interesting record. All the hallmarks of a Mogwai album are here, loud passages mixed with soft packages, a hefty dose of influence from Slint, The Smashing Pumpkins and Sonic Youth, and mostly instrumental music that conveys more emotion than a million emo bands. Yet, it's also different, because there are no ambitious masterpieces like Mogwai Fear Satan, not even a Ratts of the Capital. There are prominent vocals on a couple of songs, vocals that are even comprehendible (unlike previous Mogwai songs with vocals like Tuner or Hunted By A Freak). Even the guitar isn't front and center anymore, and many of the finest cuts on the album are based around piano melodies, not guitar riffs. This might be Mogwai, but it's a bizarre aspect of the band that we haven't really seen before.

Just because this isn't the Mogwai we know and love, doesn't mean that there's not some good songs here. Friend of the Night is a beautiful piece driven by a twinkling piano melody, I Chose Horses is mainly ambient keyboards and piano with a voice speaking Japanese over it, and Folk Death 95 sounds more like Tortoise than the squalls of guitar feedback that we've come to expect from Mogwai. They're all good songs, but they're not the amazing epic tracks that I was hoping for.

There are, of course, the requisite heavy guitar-based tracks here, but rather disappointingly, they seem more like afterthoughts than the rest of the album does. Glasgow Mega-Snake, for example, features eviscerating distorted guitar, but it doesn't have any of the murderous beauty of the riffs from Like Herod or My Father My King. Album closer We're No Here is a better effort, and while it does finish off the album on a positive note, it's perhaps not as good as I had hoped.

If it sounds like I'm disappointed with this album, that's because on some levels, I am quite disappointed. Their previous album was probably their best work since their debut, and I was really looking forward to seeing which way their momentum carried them. To a large degree, the songs presented here, however, are predictable, straightforward, and unambitious. On another level though, there are still some great tunes here, and if this album was from a band other than Mogwai, I'd probably be a lot more enthusiastic about it.

But really, why pay much attention to this album when there is so much better stuff in the band's back catalogue. This album is essential for completists, and casual fans of the band will probably enjoy it quite a bit too. But it's not their best work, and as much as it pains me to say it, there is quite a bit of room for improvement.