When the Texas quartet Explosions in the Sky released their last album, Those Who Tell the Truth Shall Die, Those Who Tell the Truth Shall Live Forever, it was unfairly plagued by coincidence. The record was a fragile triumph effectively mixing brooding melodrama and frantic rock bombast, but while the album's music was inspiring, it was no match for the ensuing mythology. Yes, a band named Explosions in the Sky did release a record the day before there were, quite literally, explosions in the sky on September 11th. Yes, the album did have a track called "This Plane Will Crash Tomorrow". However, it also came as a devastating obstacle for Explosion's music, as even music-snob bastards like myself needed something a little more "upbeat" to listen to as the world came apart at its seams.
It's in this gloomy context that Explosions in the Sky's sophomore record, The Earth Is Not a Cold Dead Place, comes as quite a revelation. While the album still exhibits the ominous melodrama of Those Who Tell the Truth, The Earth is a much warmer affair. Even the title, with its emphasis on the word "not," seems laced with an intense yearning for optimism in the face of horrific circumstance. The inside sleeve of the outstanding album art depicts a sketch of lifeless autumnal leaf wistfully tumbling in the air, only to transform into the body of a fluttering dove. In other words, this is about as close as indie rock gets to an intentionally "post-9/11" album.
One of the most impressive aspects of The Earth Is Not a Cold Dead Place is that it feels constantly in flux, growing and transforming with every note. While this achievement would be notable in any genre, in the ceaselessly masturbatory realm of post/indie/prog-rock (really folks, let's just call it "music"), where bands either take far too long to arrive anywhere (Godspeed You! Black Emperor), or just don't have anyplace special to go (Mogwai), bands that avoid both seem increasingly rare finds.
The record's opening track, the aptly titled "First Breath After Coma", serves as the perfect testament to this art-rock mastery. It begins with a single lilting electric guitar note, miming the incessant nerve-wracking electrical beeps of a hospital heart monitor. As the shimmering guitar note settles into a steady groove, the echoing thump of a bass drum organically rises out of the shadowy mix, playing the pensive "lub-dub" rhythm of a human heart. Each rhythmic line of the guitar and the drums gently coerce one another, cautiously teasing and intertwining until each one explodes into their own new forms; the electric guitar note gives birth to an incessant army of sparkling guitar melodies, while the calming bass drum motif morphs into the rollicking snare attack of a traditional marching beat; and this is all within the first four minutes!
The only disappointing aspect of The Earth Is Not a Cold Dead Place is its lack of more diversified instrumentation. While each of the record's five tracks is given its own title, trying to pick one out from another can be difficult. The tumbling meditative guitar melody that opens "Six Days at the Bottom of the Ocean", for instance, seems so reliant upon the feverish guitar freakout that closes "The Only Moment We Were Alone" that any track separation would spoil the spotless evolutionary vibe. The band themselves had to have realized this fact, as they list the tracks on the back of the album buried within a blurry din of verbiage having their lengthy album title spelled out ad-nauseum. In this context, by its tail end, Explosion's limiting bass, drums, and double guitar line-up becomes an increasing hindrance.
With this album, Explosions in the Sky have constructed a sweetly melodic, inspirationally hopeful album for a genre whose trademark is tragedy. For the astute listener, under the CD tray, amongst the illustrated scattered leaves, lies the answer to the album's desperately optimistic title; it reads "Because You Are Listening." It serves as a poignant parting sentiment from a band whose music is as dramatic as finding hope.
