Explosions in the Sky review

I wrote this review for a now-defunct music website. Besides fixing a couple grammar issues, this is how it looked way back when. 

artist: Explosions in the Sky
album title: All of a Sudden I Miss Everyone
label: Temporary Residence Ltd. 
release year: 2007
rating: 6.5

Explosions in the Sky have made no-frills post-rock their forte; no orchestration a la Godspeed You! Black  Emperor, no jazz pretense like the Chicago scene, and little of the straight ahead rock meets  electronic noodling of Mogwai. Instead, they use the same combination of echo-laden guitars,  chiming bass and martial drums as their elements to forge soundscapes that alternate between  introspective passages and soaring choruses.

So what does their new 6-song album sound like? Much like the others, but that’s not necessarily  a bad thing. You’re hard pressed to find a band with a distinctive sound, and even rarer to  find one with the discipline to develop and refine it.

Even without the title “The Birth and Death of the Day”, the opening track’s brittle guitar and subsequent explosion of chords evokes a violent birth, development and gradual death. The track ends as dulcet tones fade away until a thin, underlying tone is revealed that carries on into the second song, "Welcome, Ghosts." What we get is more of the same, but somehow different; anyone who has listened to their oeuvre can attest to the fact that each album is basically one long song divided into movements that echo each other in theme and approach.

"Welcome, Ghosts" ebbs and flows between shimmering chords and mountains of distortion, fading into the 13 minute centerpiece, "It's Natural to be Afraid." In the album’s major mood shift, it uses a repetitive piano riff, whirling distortion, sawing strings and backwards guitar to sound vaguely menacing before fading away. It's closely followed by some gauzy electronic distortion, which itself fades away before a standard Explosions riff enters. It would have been interesting to hear the proceeding 5 minutes of kaleidoscopic noise be developed, even at the risk of breaking the atmosphere of the album.

The tracks ebb and flow in a similar manner, though the repetitiveness is broken up here and there: a flurry of piano notes that recalls vintage Genesis suddenly appears among the otherwise droning "What Do You Go Home To". "Catastrophe & the Cure" opens with possibly the albums most animated moment: a quickly strummed chord makes its presence known before a volley of slightly overdriven snare hits introduces the rest of the band. Surprisingly, the energy doesn't flag for a while, taking the same basic elements that make up the quiet parts and beating the hell out of them.

A plinking piano melody introduces the relatively brief closer, "So Long, Lonesome." The whole band rallies around that single piano riff, giving it a bed of ascending chords that evaporate just when things get too claustrophobic. Drums charge forward, guitars get more distorted, the piano becomes more insistent, and then… nothing. But they aren't after the big, heroic payoff that one might expect. Their meandering sound lets the listener get lost on the way, unencumbered by the expectation of a destination.