It’s hard to overstate just how pivotal a release Young Team was. Before that record, the term “post rock” was used to describe a large variety of vaguely experimental groups that drew more from Krautrock and jazz than pop rock traditions: bands like Tortoise, Bark Psychosis, June of 44, even Stereolab.
On the other side of that record though, the term conjures images of heavily effected electric guitars and dramatic songwriting. It was such a sea change that as more bands started using those building blocks to similar effect, they were lambasted as Mogwai ripoffs.
Mogwai themselves seemed conscious of this, and sought to distance themselves. Their sophomore record is still mostly instrumental guitar-based music, but their penchant for increasing the dynamics of the songs until they break apart is largely gone.
2021 was a spectacularly immense year for music. It felt like all of the bands who weren’t able to tour last year spent 2020 writing and recording new albums. Then this year, they released them.
