Music Box | Explosions in the Sky

Mike Newmark Arts Editor

Explosions in the Sky
All of a Sudden I Miss Everyone
[Temporary Residence; 2007]

There was a moment during All of a Sudden I Miss Everyone that truly scared me. It came in the middle of the 13-and-a-half-minute “It’s Natural to be Afraid,” where two guitars quietly and comfortably meander in three-fourth time. Guitar One picks its way up as though climbing a ladder, while Guitar Two strums a countermelody an octave below. Soon, drums enter with a determined martial gallop as the instruments continue their ascent; there’s the illusion of building toward a grand climax, but nothing really happens. There was something so eerily “post-rock”—indeed, something so Explosions in the Sky—about that moment that I thought I saw the death of the entire genre in front of me. At some point, it seems, the evolution of instrumental post-rock simply ceased.

But does a genre or a band need to grow in order to stay vital? It should seem so, since boredom is the enemy for most discerning listeners, but All of a Sudden I Miss Everyone finds the Texas quartet towering so highly above their peers that the lack of progression hardly matters. Six years after first breaking out, Explosions in the Sky remain on the A-list precisely because they haven’t strayed from their patented formula, and why should they? In their self-contained universe, evolution doesn’t occur over the course of multiple albums; it happens as we listen, and we return to their music because each song presents a drama in miniature, with meditative lows and exultant highs, and because the stories they tell tremble with emotion that never feels feigned or forced.

Finding differences between All of a Sudden I Miss Everyone and the group’s previous two outings is tough, but they’re there if you care to look. The sonic building blocks are much the same as on The Earth is Not a Cold Dead Place—high-pitched, ringing guitars and stately drums with lots of snare—but this is a more tumultuous record, warding off criticism the band may have suffered for supposedly going soft. “The Birth and Death of the Day” sets the scene perfectly, beginning with a skyward scream before settling down and rising again in a march that feels custom-fitted for a film score. As the intensity builds and the band rocks out for the first time, one can easily picture—literally—explosions in the sky. At the same time, there are few outright surprises; while Those Who Tell the Truth Shall Die, Those Who Tell the Truth Shall Live Forever knocked the blocks out from under our feet at any moment, we can see the climaxes on this album coming a mile away. It’s a technique that had me yawning initially, then ultimately taking comfort in the familiarity of these lovely, well-spun tales.

So, then, what’s it all about? Explosions in the Sky deal in cautious optimism in an era when most rock musicians think that anything optimistic is lame. The pre-Sept. 11 Those Who Tell the Truth Shall Die was oblique and destructive; the post-Sept. 11 The Earth is Not a Cold Dead Place was blindingly radiant and uplifting—understandable since, in 2003, many of us in America badly needed succor. If All of a Sudden I Miss Everyone has a message, it’s that a little faith in humanity isn’t going to save the world, but that’s no reason to give up. “What Do You Go Home To?” and “Catastrophe and the Cure” begin with impending doom that, by the end, has vanished in favor of harmoniousness and redemption. “It’s Natural to be Afraid” lays out its problems before blasting them away in a cloud of heavy, major-key guitar and crashing cymbals. That these “message tracks” are completely free of words testifies to how instrumental music can speak for itself when it’s put into just the right hands.

With All of a Sudden I Miss Everyone, I’m now more convinced than ever that the knee-jerk comparison to Godspeed You! Black Emperor isn’t going to work anymore. Both bands specialize in tension-and-release instrumental rock, their songs often exceed 10 minutes and they exhibit a grandmother-upsetting range of volumes. But while Godspeed are open detractors of the United States government, there’s something unabashedly American about Explosions in the Sky, in a national anthem sort of way. When they were asked to score Friday Night Lights (a film about a Texas high school football team), many fans took it as a slap in the face, believing that setting music to celluloid meant that it couldn’t stand alone, but the pairing now makes perfect sense. Like an epic American film, this music sweeps us up with grand gestures and shows us hope amid destruction. We know exactly how it’s going to end—the good guys will win and conflicts will be resolved—and that’s just fine.