According to stereogum.com, back in 2004, director Peter Berg recruited Texan post-rock band Explosions In The Sky to score his cinematic adaptation of the book Friday Night Lights. When Friday Night Lights became a TV series, Berg continued to use a whole lot of the band’s music and that led directly to the band musically evoking the feeling of grand life-changing moments.

And now, Berg has a new project out in the world and it has another Explosions In The Sky soundtrack. On January 20, Netflix released the new miniseries American Primeval, which is a bleak and violent Western directed entirely by Berg. The show stars Taylor Kitsch, who is the actor that plays Big Tim Riggins on the Friday Night Lights TV show, Betty Gilpin, Dane DeHaan and Shea Wigham.

As for the music, Explosions In The Sky have done a whole lot of soundtrack work since Friday Night Lights and their score for American Primeval is the follow-up to the 2023 LP End. The American Primeval soundtrack album quietly came out on January 10 and it adds a few different shades to the band’s well-established style.

Parts of the music have echoes of Ennio Morricone and other parts go for a bucolic country-folk vibe. For the most part, the music is the same kind of tingly instrumental electric-guitar music that has elevated so many dramatic moments.

American Primeval Track List

1. The Fort
2. Ghosts
3. Memories
4. Hard Road
5. Adam Ondi Ahman
6. Horizon
7. Jacob’s Descent
8. A Melancholy
9. Snow
10. All My Fault
11. A Massacre
12. This Land

Photo Credit: Colin King