"Debut album on Chemikal Underground - recorded in the summer of 1997 in Hamilton with Paul Savage and Andy Miller. Regarded by many as Mogwai's best and by Mogwai themselves as their worst". -- tagline for "Young Team" in the online shop on Mogwai's official website.

As has become customary for a new Mogwai record, opinions are split between those who love it and those who love "Young Team". A distillation of the latter opinion goes as follows: "This is a pleasant album but it doesn't ruffle the feathers or offer the explosion of ideas like 'Young Team' did ... ". First of all, "Young Team" was three albums and six years ago, so get over it. I too was a bit taken back when Mogwai got quiet on record. Ah, 1999 was a good year. But I got over it, went with the flow, gradually understood what they were doing, and when I talk about their work now, I'm going to hold it up to their next most recent album, not their debut.

But at least the Mogwai critics and fans act this way consistently. Things could be worse, for instance, there's a wildly overrated British band who also released an acclaimed rock album in 1997. Subsequently, they released two very different albums, and both were similarly adored. These days, they've returned to their rock roots and released a record that would have been a natural follow up to their 1997 supposed masterpiece. Now, everyone wants to criticise it every which way. People see the new album's reversion to rock as a step backward, but still long for the old material, all while not clamouring to hear more of the recent material. Obviously, that doesn't leave this band with much room to move. It's a tough position for a band to be in. I might be moved to feel sorry for them as they face the backlash, however, when your singer claims that the mere sight of a guitar makes him sick and yet leads his band in a rock-oriented direction less than three years later, you're already a walking contradiction and can't blame your critics for being ones as well.

Back to the topic at hand -- I don't understand the reverence directed at "Young Team". It sounds like Slint and Arab Strap, whereas their next three albums all sound like Mogwai. That's not unusual career pattern for a young band trying to find itself, and it accounts for the spectrum of ideas tinkered with on the album. The band was also close to falling apart during that time, hence their disdain of the record as well as the splintered and unfocused tone of the ideas explored within. Plus, the whole "Young Team is loud but the other albums are quiet" argument doesn't make sense. For one, the album wasn't produced or mastered nearly as well as the others, so the tracks themselves are literally more quiet than on the successive albums. "Like Herod" and "Mogwai Fear Satan" are the loudest songs, filling up half the record, and they are 3/4 quiet. The latter is easily the best thing on the album, but every live version ever done blows it away like a gale disperses mist. And most of the other songs don't have any loud bits on them at all.