YOUNG TEAM

An intriguing piece which became vastly influential within the post-rock scene, Mogwai's Young Team is not one for those who like their music to be neat and tidy; like much post-rock, the music here is ragged and sprawls out like a landscape for the listener to explore. Mostly steering away from actual lyrics, aside from a mumbled plea to absent friends to come out for one last drink in R U Still In 2 It, the album explores moody, brooding soundscapes which occasionally erupt into fury, as on the exceptional Like Herod.

Like other foundational works of post-rock such as Talk Talk's final two albums and the debut by Bark Psychosis, the album seems to be composed in such a way as to resemble a collection of found sounds as opposed to conventional songs, and here that approach creates a compelling sonic universe all of its own - and that, at its heart, is the goal of much post-rock which follows on from it.