Tracklist:

1. The Birth and Death of the Day
2. Welcome, Ghosts
3. It’s Natural To Be Afraid
4. What Do You Go Home To?
5. Catastrophe and the Cure
6. So Long, Lonesome

If I had to use one word to describe the new Explosions in the Sky record, All of a Sudden, I Miss Everyone, it would be this: hope. Hope is in every measure, every note, every rising climax, every heaving triplet; it is in the words not spoken, in every layer of humming guitars, even in the occasional dissonance that haunts the background of the album’s more moody moments. It is hope that things will get better, things will change, people will come around; hope that the world is not all bad, hope that eventually there will be an answer.

Make no mistake: this album is not for those who want a quick glimpse into the life of a singer or songwriter, it’s an album meant to help you reflect on yourself.

Like the previous Explosions (and post-rock in general) records, All of a Sudden, I Miss Everyone is less a collection of separate tracks and more a single, continuous work segregated into six parts. That said, each part is different from the one before. “Welcome, Ghosts” unleashes a loud cacophony of percussion with a constant pulsing beat that other parts don’t have including a room-rattling cannon of a bass about a minute and a half in. “What Do You Go Home To?” is drenched in shimmering piano keys and rolling chords.

“Catastrophe and the Cure” is another, more intense side of Explosions in the Sky. “So Long, Lonesome” is an effectively short little closer that does just enough to bring the listener back down to earth from the album they’ve just experienced.

But the highlight of the album is the thirteen-minute long “It’s Natural to be Afraid”, which keeps a constant swirl of darkness and mystery about it with ominous piano chords and overdriven guitar in the background before switching at the 4:12 mark to what sounds to me like an early summer morning on the farm. Don’t ask me how I came up with a summer morning on the farm, but it’s bound to provoke different emotions in someone else, which is a big part of the beauty of this album.

From there the song is a three-minute buildup into…nothing. The rising passion just drops off into mellow guitar work like it fell off of a cliff. But then, just when you’re least expecting it, the climax kicks in and you’re left with your jaw on the floor. This sort of rise and fall roller coaster dynamic typifies All of a Sudden, I Miss Everyone.

The album will mean different things to different people, and a lot of that has to do with the fact that there are no lyrics. It doesn’t need them. It survives on its own momentum and sense of purpose. Because of this, the choice to take something from the experience is left entirely up to the listener.

And believe me, this album is an experience.

MP3:
Welcome, Ghosts

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 2nd, 2007 at 11:00 am and is filed under Record Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. Edit this entry.