5 key post-rock albums

Mogwai - Mogwai Young Team

Looking to explore the vast soundscapes of instrumental rock and post-rock? Start here...

Long before media spats with Metallica, Mogwai put out a debut that turned the UK rock scene on its head, with delay-heavy tremolo picking and cyclic two-chord progressions the order of the day, culminating in 16-minute dynamic powerhouse Mogwai Fear Satan.

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Explosions In The Sky - The Earth Is Not A Cold Dead Place

The triple-guitar onslaught of this Texan four-piece marries crystalline arpeggios with gut-wrenching melodies.

Their third album is hard to top. Excerpts of its tracklisting - most notably, First Breath After Coma - have soundtracked their fair share of weepy moments in film and TV, too.

Battles - Mirrored

Featuring members of Don Caballero and Helmet, this alternative supergroup gave math-rock a shot of off-kilter adrenaline with their 2007 debut.

They garnered mainstream attention, too, with Atlas appearing in ads for Sony’s LittleBigPlanet.

Slint - Spiderland

Littered with sparse clean guitars and ripping distorted passages, this 1991 album is what many consider to be the first ‘proper’ post-rock release.

Guitarist David Pajo went on to join Tortoise in the mid-90s and short-lived Billy Corgan-led supergroup Zwan in 2003.

Sigur Rós - Ágætis byrjun

Where would BBC wildlife documentaries be without these Icelandic atmosphere merchants?

Jónsi Birgisson is renowned for his prominent use of a cello bow to form huge orchestral textures, best captured on the band’s unpronounceable 1999 album.

Mike is Editor-in-Chief of GuitarWorld.com, in addition to being an offset fiend and recovering pedal addict. He has a master's degree in journalism, and has spent the past decade writing and editing for guitar publications including MusicRadar, Total Guitar and Guitarist, as well as a decade-and-a-half performing in bands of variable genre (and quality). In his free time, you'll find him making progressive instrumental rock under the nom de plume Maebe.