I remember that there was a time, not very long ago, I must point out, when I really disliked TEINACDEP. But along the way, I don't know what happened, but something must have clicked, because now I simply abhor it with all my heart. I loathe it as if it were an actual part of what defines me as a human being and an individual. It completes me, just like my suicidal tendencies. While I have to appreciate Explosions in the Sky's ability to make music that flares up such strong emotions within me, I get the impression that anger, tedium and disgust aren't the ones they were going for. And with those words read, you hereby accept that what you're currently digging into is a rant. You don't have any reason to subject yourself to the torture that is this album, unless it's your thing. And you also don't have any reason to subject yourself to the cliché of reading a rant on the internet now that I've provided you with this helpful warning, now ain't that nice of me? Anyway, this album makes me pissed in ways that those who intend to make the listener pissed could never even imagine considering the possibility of dreaming of achieving, and this review is a homage to that.
But before we actually further analyze my opinions, I suggest we make a quick shout out to what I imagine the fans of this endless desert of sugar, spice, and everything boring are like. Let's introduce my experience with this album via a memory of past events that I have:
It was dark outside, which coincides with the luminosity quotient one would expect from around 2:00 AM, and, consequently, the time of this memory, which happened at around 2:00 AM. I had decided to expose myself to the Explosions in the Sky release I had on my iPod at the time, for shits and giggles. And before I even begun listening, I noticed how the titles of the second and third track didn't fit on the tiny screen so I allowed them to scroll, at which point I was enraged to find out that I had correctly predicted “Alone” and “Ocean”, respectively, to be the last words in the titles.
Now, wasn't that fun? So why did I fume upon predicting those two words? It's not like Death Metal song titles are all that surprising either, and yet it remains as my favorite genre of all time and I can't help but praise it and get all tickly inside upon the mention of the word combination. Well, not tickly per se, I'm way too absent of a heart of the [(x^2 + y^2 – 1)^3 – x^2 y^3 = 0] kind for that, but let's pretend, okay? Mostly it was because titles such as “The Only Moment We Were Alone” and “Your Hand in Mine” are reminiscent of a mindset that I completely disagree with, one that advocates complete passivity, the thesis that emotion trumps rationality and the notion that one can justify a decadent lifestyle via the possession of glasses that boast rims the scale and girth of an aircraft carrier and an arsenal of sweaters and overtight / overbaggy clothes to complete the “totally a serious and talented artist photographer / graphic designer” outfit. Essentially a mindset that values the kind of non-circulatory characteristics of the human heart that I positively don't have and therefore feel excluded.
Sadly, Explosions in the Sky aren't Anal Cunt during their Picnic of Love period under a different guise, so this group also made sure that the music is consistent with such a mentality. The result is an album that sounds like the members lost the one testicle that they had between them in the good part of Dubai and now all they want to do is to stamp an Instagram filter onto their corneas, run around in open fields, eat chocolate and cry. You know the videos where they show 20-something-year-old female humanoid wads of crackerdom, armed with perfectly white teeth and clothing comprised entirely of things colored after different coffee to milk proportions? Those videos where these whitest of the white are shown exhibiting behaviors associated with people one third their age, only filmed in that week's fashionable developing country, in the rain, in the sun? Well, for every song except “Memorial”, that's not effeminate enough. The Notebook is Fight Club in comparison.
We start our adventure with one prolonged note on a castrated clean guitar, played 7 times, taking up 38 seconds before anything of actual relevance happens. Then we hear a cute little bittersweet melody, then another, then another, then another ad nauseam. We have louder parts, we have less loud parts, endless crescendos, some guitar effects, cat bells, the usual Post-Sissy fare. In fact, I'm quite surprised that they didn't feel the need to include a horn section for no reason. Some melodies are more irritating than others, drums are dull, bass is uninteresting, guitars are uninspired and annoying. Actually, that doesn't sound as bad some of the things I've listened to and felt indifferent towards. It's nothing that I wouldn't be able to endure. Certainly doesn't explain my absolute hatred towards everything related to TEINACDEP that I have. As far as you're concerned I might just be too closed-minded to be able to appreciate the sound they're going for, am I mistaken?
Well, the real deal-breaker is their method of delivery. These guys don't write songs, no. Because the consensus is that a song is an amalgamate of musical patterns organized in a coherent way which furthers the impact of the singular ideas. Meanwhile, this cheerful bunch is convinced that they can beat the system by splicing some crescendos together haphazardly five times and then take the rest of the week off. Every song can be neatly divided into the first half, where all the barely-existent songwriting efforts go to, and the second, which is a huge, repetitive crescendo, with some predictable variation mixed in, just so that you don't actually feel compelled to go and do something else. And that's another trick they like to employ. These guys are able to constantly and violently disappoint you: every time they come to an actually competent part, they proceed to unerringly ruin it in the most gruesome way imaginable. That's like if someone returned your dog only after having injected it with a deadly neurotoxin. It's sociopathic behavior!
They also fall for the old trap of assuming that everyone who hears their music is a moron. At least that's my explanation as to why they believed that being less spontaneous or imaginative than basic math and having no idea of what dynamics are beyond the word crescendo would ever cut it. But they don't just stick to level James LaBrie, they go the extra mile in this category. They seem to truly believe other humans' brains to be a cold, dead, empty place (if you found this line funny, they're right, by the way). Otherwise, why would they have ever felt the need to repeat every melody until you need to puke whilst being as derivative as needed to ensure that you do? It's like they're trying to force an idea into your head at all costs when no idea is present. I guess that if they hadn't done it, people could notice more easily just how much Explosions in the Sky fail in the songwriting department, so good thinking, guys.
Now, what do you say to me being more specific? No? Well, I don't care, I'm on a roll. I'll start from the beginning, the first song: We have one crescendo, which ends. Everything stops for a while, until we're introduced to a completely different theme, and the song just stays there. They possibly make half an acknowledgement of the existence of the first four minutes, but that's all. It makes this second crescendo until we eventually hear some random dissonant drone and the song ends without reaching a climax. “Okay, no biggie. This can be a set-up to have the next song blow everything away.”, one might think, but they'd be wrong. The next song is even mellower. But we don't discover that straight away, we have to listen to 40 whole seconds of possible potential to find that out. By the time this one truly marks its presence, it's too nothing, too late. And then it just goes its own way, making sure to end 7 minutes after the prompt. “Six Days At the Bottom of The Ocean” brings a slightly darker tone, encapsulated in the rich texture of two shit melodies repeated over and over, separated by a gigantic silence. “Memorial” nearly constructs itself into a decent track, but then the band doesn't resist the temptation of plopping another masturbatory crescendo half-way in. Also, this one pulls another “The Only Moment We Were Alone”: the previous song and the guitar feedback intro to this totally justifies and really begs the composition to piledrive the listener a few seconds in, “Hama”-style. What does it do? It becomes the mellowest track in the album instead, of course! Meanwhile, “Your Hand in Mine” is just an excerpt of what “The Only Moment We Were Alone” would become if it prolonged for another half-hour. And it ends, you guessed it, with another stupid crescendo, only more irritating because of how predictable such a move is by now. And throughout the whole thing, no parts that stick to you, no parts that stand out, no climactic sections timed in such a way as to actually have any perceivable impact.
And these guys are Post-Rock, goddammit! They're supposed to know how to work all that context, structure and dynamics stuff like the palm of their hand! They should be giving this lecture to me, not the other way around! Take these traits away from a Post-Rock album and the result is a bunch of effects and basic melodies stuck together with no sense or reason to justify them. The result is this very album! This is really the farthest you can get from understanding an inkling of music. If I want to listen to some pleasant sounds, I'd rather go outside, thank you. In fact, I'd rather break both my legs than be exposed to this atrocity again. Have Explosions in the Sky no shame? There are people out there who work restlessly to create the most accomplished and rewarding pieces of music ever, and these guys opt to stick to mediocrity and feel entitled to a CD and Vinyl release. And even at mediocrity they fail! They miss it by miles! They don't offer anything that would make any piece of music worthwhile, whatever the genre.
I honestly don't understand what the legions of fans of TEINACDEP see in it. Am I listening to the wrong album? Am I not scrutinizing it enough? Are they actually so lacking in imagination that they're content with 45 minutes of pointless relaxing noises, as if they aren't able to formulate the same thing in their minds with ease? Honestly, I'm even led to think that the Explosions in the Sky army might just be sorry for the dudes. Because one thing that is said by most everyone who praises this band to the stars is that they're up there with Sigur Rós. Now, one thing that I've never heard anyone say ever is that Sigur Rós are up there with Explosions in the Sky.
So, the verdict. Explosions in the Sky – The Earth is not a Cold Dead Empty Place. Did I like it? Well, not really. No.
Standout tracks:
First Breath After Coma
Memorial
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