Episode 23.5: This Will Destroy You! Black Emperor - Post-Rock 5pecial w/John Miller

Dedicated to Zac Roorda

In our 23.5th episode of 5huffle, John and Jarid explore the epic and layered genre that is Post-Rock music. In it they discover: that 4 balls deep is the appropriate amount of “deepness” to delve into Post-Rock, that Mogwai is probably a christian metal band, and that This Will Destroy You proves the existence of Plato’s Realm of Ideas. Oh, and they talk about five Post-Rock tracks.

Episode 23.5's Tracks:

Good Morning, Captain - Slint
Mogwai Fear Satan - Mogwai
Blaise Bailey Finnegan III - Godspeed You! Black Emperor
So Long, Lonesome - Explosions in the Sky
A Three-Legged Workhorse - This Will Destroy You

Episode 23.5's Platlist:

Music Used In This Episode:

Evening Glow (Slowed Down) - Lee Rosevere
It's A Mystery (Slowed Down) - Lee Rosevere
Thoughtful (Slowed Down) - Lee Rosevere
Puzzle Pieces (Slowed Down) - Lee Rosevere
Reflections (Slowed Down) - Lee Rosevere
The Long Journey (Slowed Down) - Lee Rosevere
Wandering (Slowed Down) - Lee Rosevere
Try Anything Once (Slowed Down) - Lee Rosevere
Snakes (Slowed Down) - Lee Rosevere
Last Call (Slowed Down) - Lee Rosevere

Lee Rosevere music can be found here

How to Listen to Post-Rock Flow Charts

Gremlins Trailer

Mogwai Young Team Logo

Mogwai Christian Metal Argument

“Sixteen minutes and thirty seconds. Three guitar chords. One sonic apocalypse.

I never understood the term “post-rock” as applied to a band like Mogwai. Sure, it makes sense for bands like Tortoise, Disco Inferno or A.R. Kane, because so much of the music those guys made legitimately sounds like it exists in a world where the standards of rock and roll are no longer a relevant consideration. But for me, at least, Mogwai represents so much of what is wonderful and beautiful about rock music–the thunderous power, the shivering emotion, and the brilliant sense of affirmation–that I can’t imagine a world in which the band and rock could not co-exist.

I’d prefer to think of Mogwai as the world’s best Christian Metal band. And obviously, I don’t mean that in the Stryper sense–the overwhelming majority of Mogwai songs are instrumental, and aside from this song’s title, I can’t think of another religious reference the band makes in their entire catalogue. But when you listen to a song like “Mogwai Fear Satan,” you can hear the sense of righteousness and the search for salvation shining through every note, and more than any band I can think of (with the possible exception, inevitably, of Rush), the band’s best songs sound like they are literally trying to combat the evil forces of the world with the power of rock & roll. Without lyrics, and with a totally straight face.

And for the most part, it works. Listening to the ascending three-chord riff of “Mogwai Fear Satan,” the chugging subtly harmonizing bass, and the waves upon waves of crashing drums, all of which are repeated hundreds of times throughout the course of the song, you are filled with the overwhelming sense of belief–in God, in love, in whatever the strangest and most wonderous powers of the universe are, in whatever will have you as a believer. For the sixteen and a half minutes of “Mogwai Fear Satan,” evil simply can not exist.

And yet, all I want to do while listening to it is weep with sadness. And that’s largely because it feels like the end–and not just because it happens to end the album it appears on, 1997’s stone classic Young Team, marking easily one of the best album closers in history, and not just because it so obviously sounds like the end of the world (try to listen to it without picturing the world collapsing around you–doubt it can be done). Really, it’s just because it feels like the end of all things, as if there’s nothing that could possibly come after it, because what is there that could follow “Mogwai Fear Satan”?

That’s not to say that it’s a perfect song–if it was, you can be certain it’d be significantly higher on this list. The song doesn’t quite pace itself the right way, being a bit too anxious to get to the apocalypse that it doesn’t take as much time as I’d like to build to it, and spends a bit too much time with the fallout afterwards. But the emotions evoked by the song’s best parts are as powerful and as beautiful as any other song on this list, and such brazenness in the face of evil…well, it’s always admirable. If Mogwai legitimately do fear Satan, or anything else for that matter, they’ve got a strange way of showing it.”

— Andrew Unterberger, from Intensities in Ten Suburbs