Unwed Sailor - Little Wars

The problem with playing in a genre that's all about mood is that you're listener has to be in the right one in order to really appreciate your craft. Post-rock, of course, is an especially difficult beast: Mogwai have written many tracks that sound unfinished without vocals; Tortoise have never quite worked out whether they're creating challenging jazz or ironic elevator music; Battles ruin it all with daft chanting; Godspeed have been writing and releasing the same (excellent) album for years. Unwed Sailor have, however, produced the goods with the euphoric Little Wars, sounding as Explosions in the Sky might had they realised there is a world beyond delay pedals, or like It's All Around You-era Tortoise with better tunes. Rock solid drumming supports exuberant guitar work on the first post-rock album in quite some time that neither turns the world grey with gloom, nor exists to soundtrack TV documentaries and Hollywood movies. [Ewen Millar]