All of a Sudden I Miss Everyone

Explosions in the Sky | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (February 20, 2007)
• Original Release Date: 2007
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Temporary Residence
• ASIN: B000MCH54K
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  Vinyl  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (38 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #9,484 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)
  • #50 in Music > Miscellaneous > Experimental Music

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Sometimes Explosions in the Sky start with a whisper and end with a scream, but on "Birth and Death of the Day", they begin with a scream and proceed into a symphonic odyssey that Aaron Copland might have composed if he'd played electric guitar. Like Copland, EITS are cinematic, but with more kinetic drive than any film--except maybe Koyaanisqatsi--could match. Compositions like "It's Natural to Be Afraid" take you on epic journeys that roar like a Harley Davidson one minute and slip into taut contemplation the next, using the slow-tension build that EITS have perfected. All of a Sudden I Miss Everyone was produced by John Congleton, who has worked with lo-fi groups like the Roots and the Mountain Goats. That might explain why the album lacks the atmosphere of EITS's monumental The Earth Is Not a Cold Dead Place and their Friday Night Lights soundtrack. Instead, they rely even more on the arc of their compositions and the integral twin lead guitar lines that never solo but always drive the songs. They can shift from power-chord aggression to the sound of plucked mandolins in an instant. This is progressive rock for people who weren't even born when prog reigned supreme. It's the sound of King Crimson, transmuted through punk and grunge aesthetics. --John Diliberto

Product Description

Known for bringing an emotional heft and sense of hope to a usually placid genre, Explosions In The Sky have experienced the kind of meteoric rise in popularity that flies in the face of music industry convention. Their songs are too long for radio play or commercial music videos; they avoid performing in LiveNation/Clear Channel venues; they didn't jump to a major label; and they don't sing. After scoring the film "Friday Night Lights", they took two years to work on this record, which is a massive leap forward, showcasing a broader instrumental range and their most focused, efficient songwriting. RIYL: Radiohead, Sigur Ros, Mogwai, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Mono. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

38 of 42 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Gorgeous Epic, February 20, 2007

By 

Scott Louis (Houston, Texas) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: All of a Sudden I Miss Everyone (Audio CD)

Explosions in the Sky will always have a special place in my heart. "The Earth is Not a Cold Dead Place" introduced me to instrumental post-rock, and remains a gem of the genre. This Austin-based group has the capacity to make truly emotionally stirring instrumentals, and they can move me with a guitar riff the way few can with lyrics.

Their latest studio release, "All of a Sudden I Miss Everyone" is simply the next step in the maturation of the relatively unique sound of this band. The elements that made "The Earth..." so great are still here, and in droves. The guitars remain the protagonisits, with Munaf Rayani, Mark Smith, and Michael James at the helm. The melody is rarely held by a single instrument, and rarely, if ever, reaches into the territory of a solo. Often, all three will play distinct parts, with varied rhythms, that somehow manage to coalesce into a cohesive whole. Reaching, dreamy riffs that bend and collapse into themselves, often dueling between the right and left channels, serve as a propellant into reflective, sparse arrangements that ache with the energy that served to reach that plateau. Much of the intense energy found in their music can be attributed to the phenomenal drum work of Chris Hrasky. He seems to have an innate gift for knowing how to fill the entire work with a sense of longing, and yet having. Also, new to the Explosions sound, is the addition of piano work on the latter half of the record. I was taken a bit aback at first, but on several listens, the work would be incomplete without it.

The production is sparse, yet highly adequate. The record was produced by John Congleton, who is know for his lo-fi work, yet the album still twitches with atmosphere not present in his other work. The sound is simple, almost unadulterated save for the effect pedals, with no apparent studio sheen. He does exactly what I would hope a man producing EITS would do, and that is get out of the way and let their music speak for itself. In that, his work in this record is a complete success.

To those who write this off as being stagnant, and having a lack of innovation, I say so what? If Explosions had re-invented themselves and made anything else, I for one would have been inconsolably disappointed. This stands as a work on its own, not to be judged in relationships to the band's previous work. Explosions newcomers and long-time fans alike will both appreciate this record; the band following a similar formula as they have in the past does not make this music any less beautiful, heartbreaking, and uplifting.

I imagine it must be difficult for the band to come up with titles for their tracks and records, but they always somehow manage to be meaningful without sounding trite. The titles fit the mood superlatively, yet are deceptively melancholy. One might read the album and track titles and mistake this as a sad-core record, which couldn't be further from the truth. This is an album filled with hope, longing and beauty. True, it may be born out of melancholy, but that only serves as the foundation for a tower of hope. This could almost be a novella, beginning with the crashing first moments of "The Birth and Death of the Day," meandering through various heights and depths, and emerging triumphant with "So Long, Lonesome." Even the album title mixes joy with loneliness, assuming that there is an event that, in an instant, transfigures the mind, and makes one long for things familiar. At its best moments, this music has the capability to do exactly that.

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Another fine album., March 6, 2007

By 

The Wickerman (Austin, TX) - See all my reviews

This review is from: All of a Sudden I Miss Everyone (Audio CD)

You know, if there's one thing you can say about Explosions in the Sky, it's that they're consistent. While many may (and often do) lament the fact that they never deviate from making long, mellow, atmospheric compositions, I just really can't get enough of this stuff. What these guys do just really takes me to a better place, and I love em for it.

Now, praise aside, I will admit that this is not their best work. Compared to their previous material, especially the beyond-stunning "The Earth Is Not a Cold Dead Place", this is just a good album, not a mind-blowing masterpiece, and I don't think I'd have had quite the same initial reaction to the band, had I heard this first. The songs are a bit shorter, which I suppose could potentially make it more accessible to some, but at the same time, the melodies just don't quite draw me in quite like they have before. On "The Earth...", the songs are all in the 8-10 minute range, but they're so riveting and enveloping, I don't even notice. Here, they're more in the 4-6 minute range, and they don't quite feel like they have as much time to unfold, and really do their thing. But make no mistake, the mesmerizing guitar melodies are still very much there. Plus, there are a few surprises, such as some slightly louder moments of distortion here and there, as well as some very nice piano, which fits in perfectly.

Overall, I'd recommend this album to fans, but not to newcomers. It's very good, but they've done better. Check out their early albums first, and then you'll decide if you want this. But chances are, you probably will.

(Oh, and great cover art, as well. I'm a sucker for cool packaging.)

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars All of a Sudden I Miss Everyone, June 6, 2007

By 

Mike Newmark (Tarzana, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: All of a Sudden I Miss Everyone (Audio CD)

There was a moment during All of a Sudden I Miss Everyone that truly scared me. It came in the middle of the 13-and-a-half-minute "It's Natural to be Afraid," where two guitars quietly and comfortably meander in three-fourth time. Guitar One picks its way up as though climbing a ladder, while Guitar Two strums a countermelody an octave below. Soon, drums enter with a determined martial gallop as the instruments continue their ascent; there's the illusion of building toward a grand climax, but nothing really happens. There was something so eerily "post-rock"--indeed, something so Explosions in the Sky--about that moment that I thought I saw the death of the entire genre in front of me. At some point, it seems, the evolution of instrumental post-rock simply ceased.

But does a genre or a band need to grow in order to stay vital? It should seem so, since boredom is the enemy for most discerning listeners, but All of a Sudden I Miss Everyone finds the Texas quartet towering so highly above their peers that the lack of progression hardly matters. Six years after first breaking out, Explosions in the Sky remain on the A-list precisely because they haven't strayed from their patented formula, and why should they? In their self-contained universe, evolution doesn't occur over the course of multiple albums; it happens as we listen, and we return to their music because each song presents a drama in miniature, with meditative lows and exultant highs, and because the stories they tell tremble with emotion that never feels feigned or forced.

Finding differences between All of a Sudden I Miss Everyone and the group's previous two outings is tough, but they're there if you care to look. The sonic building blocks are much the same as on The Earth is Not a Cold Dead Place--high-pitched, ringing guitars and stately drums with lots of snare--but this is a more tumultuous record, warding off criticism the band may have suffered for supposedly going soft. "The Birth and Death of the Day" sets the scene perfectly, beginning with a skyward scream before settling down and rising again in a march that feels custom-fitted for a film score. As the intensity builds and the band rocks out for the first time, one can easily picture--literally--explosions in the sky. At the same time, there are few outright surprises; while Those Who Tell the Truth Shall Die, Those Who Tell the Truth Shall Live Forever knocked the blocks out from under our feet at any moment, we can see the climaxes on this album coming a mile away. It's a technique that had me yawning initially, then ultimately taking comfort in the familiarity of these lovely, well-spun tales.

So, then, what's it all about? Explosions in the Sky deal in cautious optimism in an era when most rock musicians think that anything optimistic is lame. The pre-Sept. 11 Those Who Tell the Truth Shall Die was oblique and destructive; the post-Sept. 11 The Earth is Not a Cold Dead Place was blindingly radiant and uplifting--understandable since, in 2003, many of us in America badly needed succor. If All of a Sudden I Miss Everyone has a message, it's that a little faith in humanity isn't going to save the world, but that's no reason to give up. "What Do You Go Home To?" and "Catastrophe and the Cure" begin with impending doom that, by the end, has vanished in favor of harmoniousness and redemption. "It's Natural to be Afraid" lays out its problems before blasting them away in a cloud of heavy, major-key guitar and crashing cymbals. That these "message tracks" are completely free of words testifies to how instrumental music can speak for itself when it's put into just the right hands.

With All of a Sudden I Miss Everyone, I'm now more convinced than ever that the knee-jerk comparison to Godspeed You! Black Emperor isn't going to work anymore. Both bands specialize in tension-and-release instrumental rock, their songs often exceed 10 minutes and they exhibit a grandmother-upsetting range of volumes. But while Godspeed are open detractors of the United States government, there's something unabashedly American about Explosions in the Sky, in a national anthem sort of way. When they were asked to score Friday Night Lights (a film about a Texas high school football team), many fans took it as a slap in the face, believing that setting music to celluloid meant that it couldn't stand alone, but the pairing now makes perfect sense. Like an epic American film, this music sweeps us up with grand gestures and shows us hope amid destruction. We know exactly how it's going to end--the good guys will win and conflicts will be resolved--and that's just fine.