“If someone said that Mogwai were the stars, I would not object. If the stars had a sound, it would sound like this.”

So states the voiceover that opens Young Team, the debut record from post rock legends Mogwai. It would smack of pretention—if they didn’t spend the next sixty-four minutes backing it up.

It’s important to remember that at this point, post rock—as in the guitar-based, cinematic, climax chasing branch of the genre—basically didn’t exist. A few bands had already been labeled “post rock,” such as Stereolab and Tortoise, but they were experimenting much more with dub reggae, Krautrock, and electronica than explosive guitars.

Some of the records now regarded as the “first” post rock records, such as Slint’s Spiderland or Talk Talk’s Laughing Stock were already influencing scores of young bands (despite not actually being post rock records). Post rock might have been weasling its way into the musical lexicon, but the music it described sounded little like Explosions in the Sky or Godspeed! You Black Emperor or Sigur Rós or This Will Destroy You or Mono or Unwed Sailor or any of the countless other post rock bands stuffing my record shelves.

Then came Mogwai. Young Team was such a revelation that for the next several years, nearly every post rock band to debut was written off as a shameless ripoff of this record (seriously: search Pitchfork for any review of any post rock album before 2005). This record was so unique that even Mogwai themselves was criticizing for ripping it off themselves on their subsequent releases.

But whereas many groundbreaking records don’t hold up well to modern standards, Young Team remains one of the most rewarding and visionary post rock records of all time. From the opening bass riff and guitar chimes of “Yes! I Am a Long Way From Home” to the all-or-nothing dynamics of “Mogwai Fear Satan,” every track of this record is as great a post rock record as ever made. There’s the menacing “Like Herod,” which shifts between droning chords and a punish squall of distortion; the delicate atmosphere of “Tracy;” the hushed piano ballad “With Portfolio” which is augmented (then interrupted) by swirling feedback. There’s even a strange sort of Britpoppy song with sung vocals (the Prince-esque titled, Arab Strab-featuring “R U Still In 2 It?“).

As vast and varied as the post rock scene has proliferated in the twenty-two years since this record, nearly every reverb-soaked, tremolo-picking, effects-heavy, dynamic-shifting post rock band can trace their ethos back to this record. And don’t think I mean at all to say that there’s no ingenuity in post rock. But rather, this record introduced a new archetype into the musical world. And while Mogwai has cemented a reputation as one of the most prolific and consistent bands around, Young Team remains the most important record in their discography. So much so that at one point, I joked that I’d just spend a ton of money for an original vinyl press of this record and then just never buy another Mogwai record again. But, as we’ll see, that’s not what happened.