Explosions In the Sky - All of a Sudden I Miss Everyone

As Explosions in the Sky's latest album All of a Sudden I Miss Everyone begins, we are greeted with an unfamiliar solitary distortion, eliciting a sense of uncertainty and apprehension. Just when the listener is comfortable with this distortion, it's as if the flood gates break, and all that Explosions in the Sky have, especially that shining guitar, comes washing over you to jar you from the pattern you expected. As the album progresses, EitS's style makes itself more apparent, with those sparse notes playfully building into beautifully layered crescendos until a climax of marching drums, crashing cymbals, and piercing (in the best possible way) guitars hits you right in the chest. For me, it all comes together on the epic third track (obviously arbitrary separations in the case of an EitS album), "It's Natural to Be Afraid". Explosions in the Sky take their time here, being their typical meanderin' selves. Unlike some post-rock bands nowadays, however, EitS's more deliberate times are nothing to simply fast forward through or a chore to listen to, the culmination of which is best appreciated in the context of its slower periods. In "It's Natural to be Afraid", there's this sense of a profound, yet beautiful sadness until an energy emerges that transforms it into a powerful feeling of desperation that pervades the entire song, truly showing it as the "masterpiece" of this album. All of a Sudden I Miss Everyone sets itself apart from EitS's other work in that while it still maintains their almost orchestral beauty of it's predecessors, it ensures that it all doesn't feel like a stale repetition by so skillfully merging reflection with intensity, energy with structure. [www.temporaryresidence.com]