The Wilderness — Explosions in the Sky

I’m addicted to life soundtracks. Any music that can just take you to a given moment in your life is something I’ll always cherish.

Explosions in the Sky does just this for me. I put on my headphones or blast my car speakers and I’m telepathically teleported to certain events in my life. I remember hearing “Your Hand in Mine” for the first time and would continuously think of that song anytime something heavy happened (a break up, a pet dying, losing my phone — to name a few) in my life.

I’d like to throw out here that Explosions in the Sky isn’t an emo band. They don’t have whiney, overly dramatic lyrics that makes one want to apply eyeliner to their face. They don’t sing about hating your parents. In fact, there isn’t any singing or lyrics at all. Explosions in the Sky features a band without a main frontman. It’s just music done in the most harmonically beautiful way possible, and they do an amazing job with it.

I sometimes like to think this is one of the best musically talented bands modern vibes have to throw at us. I mean, if you think of it — there are a ton of bands I (and probably you) really dig because of their lyrics (The Wonder Years, Enter Shikari [the song I tagged is also musically f*cking insanely amazing], Sundowner, I think you get the picture). So without a vocal tool, a band might have a hard time connecting with people on a personal level.

I think that’s where Explosions hits it out of the park. They use other embellishments to capture your ears and heart and take it on a trip through emotional fields of hard and soft progressive rock. I looked them up on Spotify and realized they have a new album out and gave it a listen. Here are my thoughts:

Wilderness —

If this is what the wilderness sounds like, I don’t know what the hell we’re doing plowing it over for more roads and infrastructure. There’s peace and tranquility with this song, along with an imagination teaser. One that transported me to a grassy field: I’m laying down looking up into the sky with a slight chilly breeze to take away any worry I might have. If only birds would chirp this tune instead of their squawking (f*ck birds, especially seagulls). Maybe instead of roads and buildings we should be putting Bluetooth speakers everywhere with this on. Yeah I’d dig that. But for now these headphones will do.

The Ecstatics —

There’s some more futuristic sounds. Maybe the trees in the Wilderness are getting down with the bleeps and bloops of satellites flying over them. Or, perhaps, this is a metaphor for what mankind is doing to the wilderness that still remains? Either way, at 1:35 some marching taps come on like rain into a pail or bucket. I dig that.

Tangle Formations —

This track has characters, and you meet all of them after the three minute mark. The beat stays the same but the music around it slows and speeds up. I feel like I’m sitting a small town’s square somewhere. There’s a lot of different tunes synched into this song and I love all of them. The bass guitar is talking to me. The high melody is the sunlight shining through the clouds. The high twinkling is a windchime swaying in a breeze. Each symbol that clashes is the bell tower, signaling the passing of each hour. I don’t know what I’m doing here, but it all makes sense. I feel like I should be here.

Logic of a Dream —

This song best describes my plane dream: It’s early morning and the sun is rising. I’m excited to travel somewhere, usually not knowing where I’m headed. Though, this excitement fades to dark clouds of nervousness and uncertainty. I hate flying. I can hear the roar of a chord plucked getting progressively louder and faster followed by a loud takeoff. Then we hear the wilting and drooping flowers, the plane crashes through a floor of clouds. But then somehow is picked up by angels strumming soft notes of hope, safety and non turbulence. We fly back into the sky and drift off into the sky on high hopes.

Disintegration Anxiety —

I can’t say that I have much disintegration anxiety right now, but when I flew on a plane earlier this year I sure as f*ck did. Blargh. Anyway, this might be my favorite song on the album. It’s a bit faster than the other ones and kind of sounds out of place on this album. It’s more fast paced with a riffy guitar strum plucking away quicker than anything experienced yet. If I was worried about graining myself into thin air, I’d listen to this song. I think it would help calm the nerves.

Infinite Orbit —

I think this is a song John Glenn would dig. This track does a great job of prog rocking it out, constantly building up from the left ear with shimming ambiance and then incorporating the right with power. I feel like I’d look down from the final frontier and blast this on my pioneer rocket subs.

Colors in Space —

Welp, we’re out of orbit and drifting off amongst the stars. I love how Explosions fuse together the soft beeping of what sounds like a NASA space computer, beeping in unison with the twinkling stars and vibrations in the infinite sky. I have no idea whether or not we’re going to be returning to Earth, but with this song on it; it’s okay to drift amongst the heavens. It’s calm and soothing.

Landing Cliffs —

What goes up must come down and our ship eventually kicks out its talons as we fall from the sky. This song is calming as f*ck and I’d gladly descend in from anywhere with this chiming in my ears (just remember to put your tray tables up — you don’t want them yelling at you). I’ve fallen in love with the spanish twanging guitar as well. An extra add to shimmering beauty. Scratch out what I said before — this is probably my favorite and I’d gladly listen to it anytime. Explosions ends with a great outro, fading out with soft chords from lowkeys on a piano. (Note — an odd thing I noticed the 4th time through on this song: with most Explosions songs, I prefer the second half to the first. But this one, I really like the beginning part more than the end. Don’t get me wrong, the whole track is beautiful. But a note worth taking.)

Well, here we are back from our journey and now we have to wait in the excruciatingly long line to get off this vessel. Not to mention, we’ll have to go through the same old rigmarole of finding the right baggage claim (this is why I don’t check bags), getting in your car and heading back into the black and white jungle of normality. The ride has ended, but I’ll listen to this album from time to time whenever I want a quick getaway.

I’ll give this album a 4 out of 5.