Mogwai Announce New Album Title, Release Date

Over the weekend, the label announced that Mogwai's fifth proper album, Mr. Beast, which will be released March 6, is "perhaps their heaviest record since Young Team and better than we even hoped." Um, low expectations, guys?

Matador also promises that the album will feature "headcrushers." Yes!

Mogwai's trusty producer, Tony Doogan, manned the control board alongside the band at their Castle of Doom studio in Glasgow. Da-da-da-duuuuuuhhhhm. In June, Braithwaite told Pitchfork that song titles include "Friend of the Night" and "Robocop Vs. the Orange Walk", and that the record "will probably do for flangers what Interpol did for suits." Former Creation Records honcho and current Mogwai manager Alan McGee said in an interview with the website of his current label, Poptones, that Mr. Beast is "probably the greatest art rock record that I've been involved in since My Bloody Valentine's Loveless." He then upped the ante by declaring, "It's possibly better than Loveless." Talk about pre-release hype!

Matador also promised that Mogwai will visit the States in early 2006, and once those dates are confirmed and we have our tickets in hand, you can bet we'll let everyone know. Until that happens, the band has a handful of UK scheduled, but we're pretty much doing scalper services for free here, as all dates except Glasgow are sold out. Proceeds from those two home turf shows will benefit The Scottish Association for Mental Health as well as an organization that helps refugees in Glasgow.

The London shows are billed as "intimate", so no soccer-themed heckling, please:

11-28 Edinburgh, Scotland - Cabaret Voltaire
11-29 Glasgow, Scotland - The Arches
01-10 London, England - ICA
01-11 London, England - ICA
01-12 London, England - ICA
01-13 London, England - ICA
01-14 London, England - ICA

Mogwai: http://www.mogwai.co.uk/
Matador: http://www.matadorrecords.com/