Explosions in the Sky clearly believe in the cathartic powers of a good jam. On their fourth album they pick out melodically-simple Cure-style guitar lines against a backdrop of pretty finger-picking and aurally disruptive sonic noise/atmospheric drones. They like their delay pedals.
Occasionally, lest we think they’re getting a little bit too conventionally melodic, they all hit the distortion pedals and the drummer batters the shit out of his drums. You can almost picture the earnest head-bobbing as you listen. On the plus side, and I’m not joking here, they’ve put a significant pause (twenty seconds of so) in the middle of a track called ‘Human Qualities’, and I’ve just read Jennifer Egan’s A Visit from the Goon Squad in which she makes a strong case for such ‘Great Rock and Roll Pauses’ in the chapter of the same name. So I’m giving them an extra half star for that.
But otherwise I’m not feeling it (unless “it” happens to be a mild migraine). ‘Take Care Take Care Take Care’ is pretty, but it becomes headache-inducingly repetitive. They can clearly play their instruments, and if they ever have to get involved in a shoe-gaze-off against a local street-gang, they might well win. But on the whole, it feels like post-rock muzak.