Watch Out! Explosions In The Sky

By Sietse

A little over a month ago I decided to go out to a shop and buy a post-rock album. I didn't know if they would have one and I certainly didn't know what band it would be, but since no band in the genre has ever disappointed me yet, I was just going to buy the first thing I would find. Though when I talked to a friend about it he said that he had seen a Explosions in the Sky album and that it was only 10 euros.

The next day when I went to the shop, that friend, Almar, came with me to check if the CD was still there. Well, it was and it looked just awesome. I took the album and glared at it for awhile to check it out, because the cover was just amazing. It appears to be a cover with some (awesomely) drawn burning trees and random words on it, line after line after line. However, when you take a closer look, you'll see that those random words actually form the album title: "The world is not a cold dead place". Thing became even cooler when I turned the album around and saw the repeated words yet again, but this time some of the words were coloured red and spelled out the 5 track titles. It seems short, but the post-rock genre is notorious for its long tracks and indeed the album is still 45 minutes long, with the shortest song coming in at 8:18.

So naturally I wanted to buy it and grabbed my wallet at which Almar suddenly remarked: "Damn, I should've not told you about that album, I should've waited untill I had the money to buy it myself." Which made the pleasure of purchasing it even greater as it was really fun hearing him mock about it. Then even at the counter the guy who sold me the album complimented me on my taste for such a young guy and he started talking about when he listened to the album. He said: "I listened to it whilst flying from America, but maybe that was entice the gods" enticing the gods being a translated Dutch saying which means something like "to ask for problems".

The album is a real beauty with nicely distorted guitars, great drums that help build up the song and they didn't use any vocals at all, which is normal for the post-rock genre and it brings a lot more creativity to the sound of the instruments. Yet even without the vocals the songs present you with a story. Yes, they present you with a story that you can make up for yourself. I recommend to just sit there, have a drink and listen to the music, without doing anything else. It's a great experience.