CHAPTER 17
Post-Rock and Post-Metal
Godspeed, Mogwai, Neurosis and the slow build
22 works, in the order the book names them
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001/TV series
TFI Friday
Channel 4
Mogwai had sworn that they would never perform on the defining British television show of the era TFI Friday, whose host Chris Evans was deemed to be ‘a completely obnoxious prick’.
Open in IMDb ↗ -
002/Film
Quadrophenia
Franc Roddam
They were, geographically and culturally speaking, a very long distance removed from the chumminess of the Groucho Club and the market stalls of Camden Town, where people would purchase Union Jack stickers to attach to their Quadrophenia-inspired mopeds.
Open in IMDb ↗ -
003/Album
Washing Machine
Sonic Youth
‘The Diamond Sea’ is the twenty-minute track that concludes Sonic Youth’s Washing Machine album, which was released in 1995, the same year Mogwai formed.
Open in YouTube ↗ -
004/Album/1975
Metal Machine Music
Lou Reed
Thurston Moore’s brief verses aside, most of the track’s running time consists of free-form, feedback-filled instrumental guitar noise, delicate in certain places, severe and engulfing at others, with echoes of Crazy Horse, Glenn Branca and Lou Reed’s Metal Machine Music.
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005/Album/1999
Come On Die Young
Mogwai
Many of the tracks on Mogwai’s second LP, Come On Die Young (1999), remained deliberately hushed because the band were apprehensive of being caricatured as ‘the Status Quo of quiet-loud’.
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006/Album/1997
Young Team
Mogwai
Aidan Moffat, the singer of Arab Strap who contributed vocals to Mogwai’s ‘R U Still in 2 It’ from their 1997 debut album Young Team, remembers he and his friends keeping a close eye on Braithwaite whenever they saw him perform.
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007/Album/1971
Master of Reality
Black Sabbath
Early on, Mogwai recorded a (slightly slapdash) cover of ‘Sweet Leaf’ from Master of Reality.
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008/Album
F# A# ∞
Godspeed You! Black Emperor
Released in 1997, their debut album F# A# ∞ set the tone for all that would follow.
Open in YouTube ↗ -
009/Film/2002
28 Days Later
Danny Boyle
Godspeed’s music was exactly what Danny Boyle had in mind when he was working on the zombie thriller 28 Days Later (2002).
Open in IMDb ↗ -
010/Album/2002
Yanqui U.X.O.
Godspeed You! Black Emperor
After a three-album run culminating in 2002’s Yanqui U.X.O., Godspeed’s unwieldy titles had become easy to parody while their music was beginning to feel less fresh than it once did, characterized as it always was by long droney passages, slowly cranking up the tension until that inevitable orgasmic crescendo.
Open in YouTube ↗ -
011/Album/1996
Through Silver in Blood
Neurosis
Their fifth album in particular, 1996’s Through Silver in Blood, is considered a defining moment in post-metal history.
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012/Album
Times of Grace
Neurosis
With their independent spirit and desire to challenge listeners, it’s little wonder they found an ally in Steve Albini, who has recorded several Neurosis albums, beginning with 1999’s Times of Grace.
Open in YouTube ↗ -
013/Album/2002
Oceanic
Isis
Isis’s artistic peak would be their 2002 masterpiece Oceanic, after which their direction went a little Tool-wards before their split in 2010.
Open in YouTube ↗ -
014/Album/2003
Australasia
Pelican
The latter outfit released their entirely instrumental debut LP Australasia in 2003.
Open in YouTube ↗ -
015/Album
Rock Action
Mogwai
Having had this gauntlet thrown down, and fresh from touring alongside Isis, Mogwai then decided to capture a sound that was more aggressive, abrasive and faithful to their live shows after two relatively subdued and prettier albums, Rock Action and Happy Songs for Happy People.
Open in YouTube ↗ -
016/Album
Happy Songs for Happy People
Mogwai
Having had this gauntlet thrown down, and fresh from touring alongside Isis, Mogwai then decided to capture a sound that was more aggressive, abrasive and faithful to their live shows after two relatively subdued and prettier albums, Rock Action and Happy Songs for Happy People.
Open in YouTube ↗ -
017/Album/2006
Mr Beast
Mogwai
Their 2006 Mr Beast featured monstrous numbers like ‘Glasgow Mega-Snake’ and ‘We’re No Here’ on which the heaviness was kept to its highest setting for the entire duration of each track.
Open in YouTube ↗ -
018/Compilation
Constellation Music until Now
Constellation Records
Constellation Records’ 2001 compilation CD Constellation Music until Now included an essay clarifying what had been the label’s mission from the outset: ‘to enact a mode of cultural production that critiques the worst tendencies of the music industry’.
Open in YouTube ↗ -
019/Album/2011
Lulu
Lou Reed and Metallica
It is a mistake to consider Lou Reed and Metallica’s masterpiece Lulu (2011) in terms of any kind of logical continuation in the discography of either the planet’s most successful metal group or the shades-sporting artist behind 1972’s much-loved Transformer.
Open in YouTube ↗ -
020/Album
Transformer
Lou Reed
It is a mistake to consider Lou Reed and Metallica’s masterpiece Lulu (2011) in terms of any kind of logical continuation in the discography of either the planet’s most successful metal group or the shades-sporting artist behind 1972’s much-loved Transformer.
Open in YouTube ↗ -
021/Album
Berlin
Lou Reed
Even when you consider Reed’s history of upsetting his own fans with recordings like Metal Machine Music or the rock-operatic misery of Berlin, and even when you take into account Metallica’s habit of confounding their own core audience with controversial actions such as releasing ballads, avoiding guitar solos for an entire album or cutting their hair short, Lulu stands out as a different beast altogether.
Open in YouTube ↗ -
022/Album
Soused
Scott Walker & Sunn O)))
This is because that joint record, Soused, operated in a similarly ‘difficult’ and highbrow vein to Lulu.
Open in YouTube ↗
Nothing matches
No work in this chapter carries that word. Clear the filter to bring back all 22.