Explosions in the Sky

EXPLOSIONS!!!!!!!!!!!

First we will give you some background information. Explosions is made up of four young guys from Texas. The line-up is three guitars and a drum kit. They have no vocals to muddle up their beautiful melodies. With one to all three guitars playing different rifts at the same time this music more closely resembles Classical music with distortion the the "post-rock" label they've been given. Although if you ask the band they would ask you to simply refer to them as a rock band. Although they've released 5 albums since their formation in 1999, this band hasn't hit mainstream in the way they deserve. They are, however, featured on the Friday Night Lights sound-track and have played on an episode of Austin City Limits. We saw them live at the phenomenal Sasquatch music festival at the Gorge in George( Ben just likes to say the "Gorge in George"-Marie). Watching them preform live is just as good, if not better, then listening to them on your laptop.

What makes this band unique, other then being a high quality instrumental band, is that you can listen to them intensely, hanging onto every note and every drum beat. You can hear how perfectly it is woven together or you can zone out and let the music flow through you, while having two completely different experiences. We would compare them to Pink Floyd in this ability to carry you away in the music. You can listen to songs like "The birth and death of a day" (7:50) and realize how it is so appropriately titled. This seems to be a problem with other instrumental bands, they write a song and then slap any title on it to which they assume sounds cool, without any influence from the song itself. While listening to "the birth and death of a day" you can hear the sunrise, feel the waking up. This continues through the song until you hear the last rays of sunlight disappear behind the mountains to the west.

Too many bands now a days just use drums to keep a beat and make ambient noise in the background. Explosions drummer Chris Hrasky uses everything from his bass drum to the high hat as the fourth instrument in the band. It isn't continuously used in every song, so when that symbol crashes in the middle of a slow rift, you feel the intensity.

Ben's suggested song to listen to by explosions is "Your Hand in Mine"

Marie's suggested pick is "The Long Spring"