Twenty years is an awful long time for any band to stay together. It’s even longer for a band how has been criticized for remaking the same record over and over again.
But twenty years after releasing their stunning Young Team, Mogwai released their most essential record in over a decade.
Across their storied career, Mogwai have been no strangers to experimentation. Their sonic palette has stretched from cinematic post rock to Krautrock to heavy metal to indie rock.
But rarely do their experimentations last an entire record. But on 2014’s Rave Tapes, the Scottish post rock demigods decided to set aside their trademark bombast and spend an album practicing restraint.
Mogwai’s discography is a bit difficult to sort out. With an enormous catalog and the mythos to match, it can be difficult to get a handle on which records stand out from among the rest of their output.
But I’ve noticed two matters of consensus among the Mogwai fanbase. First, that Young Team is their best album. Second, that Hardcore Will Never Die, But You Will is absolutely fantastic.
As far as prolificity is concerned, few groups can top Mogwai. Their discography is a veritable black hole, including nine full length albums, six soundtracks, and a number of EPs and remixes.
Among that wealth of output, it’s widely considered that 2008’s Hawk is Howling is not exactly the best place to start. And yet, that’s exactly where I did.
“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.
For as long as I’ve been familiar with the Appleseed Cast, I’ve never done a deep dive into their discography. Ten years passed between hearing them on Deep Elm’s Emo Is Awesome/Emo Is Evil compilation and purchasing Low Level Owl. It’s taken me six years to buy anything else in their catalogue.
And when it comes down to it, I basically purchased Peregrine at random while looking at the severe lack of Appleseed Cast in my collection and deciding I needed to do something about it.
Hindsight is a funny thing. In 1999, no one took American Football seriously—at times, it feels like that includes the band. The Urbana, IL locals played a spattering of local shows, but never left the Midwest. They never took the time to recruit a permanent bassist, functioning largely as a studio-only band during their original three-year run.
But in the twenty years that have passed since their eponymous full-length, they have become one of the most influential bands of the Midwest Emo sound, often lauded alongside groups like Jimmy Eat World, Mineral, and Sunny Day Real Estate. “Never Meant” is such a perfect encapsulation of the sound that it’s become a meme.
When I was diving into the emo scene in the early-to-mid 2000s, one band was constantly lifted up as the primary influence for nearly every band I listened to: Sunny Day Real Estate.
But looking back on the twinkly guitars and soaring vocals those bands employed, it seems like Mineral may have had more direct influence.
Last night, I went to a hardcore show in a crowded basement on a Monday night in South Bend, Indiana (like…a surprisingly crowded basement. And everybody showed up before the first band and stayed the whole time??? It was nuts).
And among a lineup of heavy riffing, mosh pitting, passionate hardcore, Crafter from Massachusetts stood far above the rest.
While the last few years have seen many music fans struggling to reconcile that they people behind their favorite music were terrible people (see especially: Brand New), Morrissey fans have always been painfully aware that he’s a bastard. To most Smiths fans, he’s like our old, drunk uncle who we wish would just shut up.
For the most part, that hasn’t stopped the fandom’s appreciation of his work. There’s been a sort of, “well, you know, he’s just old” attitude toward most of his press antics.
But Years of Refusal, his 2009 tour-de-force, doesn’t sound like the work of an old idiot clinging to his glory days. It’s a fierce and muscular disc that’s just as vigorous as anything he released twenty years earlier.