Not everyone likes Explosions in the Sky, but no one who dislikes them does so because they don’t make beautiful music.
Simplified restatement: Explosions in the Sky makes beautiful music and no denies this.

Their detractors point rather to the cloying sentimentality or overbearing drama of it all, and with song titles like “It’s Natural To Be Afraid” or “What Do You Go Home To?” and the packaged artwork of a man alone with his birthday cake or a young couple kissing under a diving board or a person rowing in a boat alone through a flooded city, their points are valid.
But to allow that to distract from your enjoyment of the music is to miss the point entirely.
Contained herein are glistening guitars, crushing crescendos, soaring lead lines, bombastic drums, and more mood changes than you can shake a stick at. Each track is in itself a handful of sketches sewn together by a careful hand.
And the way the group composes to fit each mood, you feel it all–unabashed joy, devastating grief, gripping insecurity, restlessness, and peace–if you let yourself. And as cliché as it is to call instrumental post rock cinematic, this record really does sound like the score to some forgotten drama. After all, Explosions in the Sky did write the soundtracks to Friday Night Lights and the upcoming Prince Avalanche. And it’s no wonder–even without a story to aid, the group still sounds like they’re telling one.