THE EARTH IS NOT A COLD DEAD PLACE

When I picked up this album, I expected some weird stuff. A very well-established post rock fan previous to purchasing this record, I was accustomed to hearing some odd material that took a few listens to get into. Well folks, I've got news for you. Not this album. This is one of the most accessible pieces of post rock music I've ever heard, and it doesn't sacrifice any of the emotion or surrealism that the genre entails.

I can't say enough about how powerfully uplifting this album is, nor about the means in which it achieves this mood. An extremely small group a four members, EITS is able to produce emotions that rival those made by the nine-piece GY!BE. In this sense, Explosions exemplifies the very definition of post rock: using rock instrumentation for non-rock purposes. Two guitars (sometimes three), a bass, and drums produce what I had thought to be unthinkable pieces of music. The guitar is truly turned into a melodic instrument, and makes the lack of vocals entirely irrelevant. The eccentric snare drum patterns add such intensely steady grooves, even in extremely slow compositions.

To give this piece of work anything less than five stars is a tragedy. If someone came up to me and asked to hear post rock for the first time, this is the album I would give them. It is truly one of the greatest post rock albums ever.