Post-Rock
Post-rock is mostly instrumental music that uses rock instruments to build texture, atmosphere and slow dramatic swells instead of verses and choruses.
The critic Simon Reynolds popularized the term in 1994. Pieces are often long, starting quietly with clean, echoing guitars and growing layer by layer to a loud climax, sometimes with strings, piano or electronics. Vocals are rare or treated as another texture. It developed in the 1990s in Britain and North America, and differs from math rock by favoring mood and dynamics over complexity.
Artists it is known for: Mogwai, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Explosions in the Sky, Sigur Rós.
- Family
- Alternative & Indie
- On Spotify
- A current genre
- What it is
- A genre
- From
- United Kingdom and North America, 1990s
- Trackify listeners who play it
- 2%
About 2,000 of 83,000 Trackify listeners with public profiles have post-rock among their top artists of the last four weeks. Rounded; updated 13 November 2026.
Post-Rock artists
Black Country, New Road
Carissa's Wierd
Swans
Deafheaven
what is your name?
toe
Boris
Stereolab
Krobak
Sigur Rós
The post-rock artists most Trackify listeners have in their top fifty. Each opens on Spotify.
Sources
The definition is written for this site from open sources, and was checked against them on 13 November 2026.