Explosions in the Sky – All of a Sudden, I Miss Everyone

Being Down Never Seemed So Beautiful

For all the hype it’s received and all the people that somehow passed it over, post-rock has seen many artisis appear and vanish without ever receiving the hero status they arguably deserved. Explosions in the Sky have managed some longevity in a game where others have hung it up or just disappeared. All of a Sudden, I Miss Everyone, their sublime 2007 album, thankfully shows no signs of laurel-resting, complacency or any diminishment of their lugubrious musical outlook.This album plays like a gorgeous symphony in Melancholy major, where triumphant crescendos and somber interludes are there to orchestrate a theme of reflection and loneliness laid out by the title. This is not a new approach for the band. Their 2003 masterwork The Earth is Not a Cold Dead Place buzzed with the energy of a planet filled with beauty, diversity, sadness, life and its fair share of problems. All of a Sudden‘s six tracks range from the rush of a day in life to contemplating something that might have left this world simply to haunt it. There are moments like “Welcome, Ghosts” and “What Do You Go Home To?” that revel in seductively spectral melodies without movement or stagnation. “It’s Natural to Be Afraid” is the album’s centerpiece with its shifts from baroque gloom and somber tones to paranormal feedback and white noise.

All of a Sudden, I Miss Everyone closes with “So Long, Lonesome,” a peculiarly titled track in that Explosions in the Sky might be hinting at dropping the quality at the hub of their music’s beauty. Increasingly odd is how a piano/guitar ramp creates one of the album’s most desolate atmospheres that, after a brief zenith accompanied by drums, fades away like a close friend seen waving goodbye in a rearview mirror. Such is the feeling when the album ends.