Explosions in the Sky
Those Who Tell the Truth Shall Die, Those Who Tell the Truth Shall Live Forever
[Temporary Residence; 2001]
Rating: 8.9
Most of us spend our lives sleepwalking through the daily
routines, and sometimes it takes the "Jaws of Life" to rip
open the perceptive confines that coincide with a life of
ritualism. You awake one morning to the braying tone of your
alarm clock and drowsily reach over to turn the damn thing
off, only to find that the established procedure for doing
so causes no reaction. You press the "Off" button two or
three more times to make sure you haven't made an error in
judgment as your senses become more acute and your emotions
inflame. Something has usurped the authority of logic,
shattering your rationalizations of many wildly complex and
confounding variables, and schooling you in "possibility."
Explosions in the Sky have elucidated these prevalent truths
for me through their epic instrumental lamentations. Though
the band are hardly the first iconoclasts of the revered
"verse-chorus-verse" formula, theirs is a music of possibility
like few others have dared to make. On their debut album,
How Strange, Innocence, they brandished a sort of
restraint that often teased listeners with visions of the
group's capability were they only to let loose. The
bandname implies scorching collages of noise, yet most of
their crescendos end in plucked strings and comforting,
ambient gauze.
On their sophomore effort, the contradictorily titled Those
Who Tell the Truth Shall Die, Those Who Tell the Truth Shall
Live Forever, the group has recanted on their more
unexcitable tendencies, opting to infuse their work with a
formerly unseen rawness and intensity. And even if it's
not a didactic analysis of what constitutes "music" (such as
the Olivia Tremor Control's Black Foliage), it
certainly makes for a revelatory listen.
"Greet Death" opens the album innocuously enough with
inaudible strumming that surfaces just long enough to be
devastated by seething drums and scathing, distorted guitars.
Such previously foreign abrasiveness is an immediate indicator
that Explosions have rewritten their aesthetic principles
while leaving their ability to wield a stark melody virtually
unimpaired. As the dust clears and the sonic damage is
assessed, the remaining feedback segues into a sober slide
guitar, denoting a major transition in the song's emotional
appeal. The track ends as a burgeoning riff of apocalyptic
proportions is suddenly and unexpectedly smeared across the
audio spectrum with digital effects.
These structural inversions are a primary signifier of Those
Who Tell the Truth's sound. Arrangements are introduced
and then dismantled, as though they're vying with one another
for the listener's attention. Mogwai's Young Team
is an obvious reference point; both records feature similar
instrumentation and soft/loud dynamics. But where Young
Team was content to methodically construct its walls of
jarring white noise, Those Who Tell the Truth builds
more erratically and, upon first listen, illogically. But
with every subsequent listen, the internal organization of
each song becomes more inviting.
Ambiguity seems to be one of the disc's greater appeals.
Depending upon your mood, the album can document good versus
evil, existential insignificance versus blissful ignorance,
war versus peace, or whatever other contrasting forces best
suit your life at the moment. Where so many lyricists fail
in exacting the perfect sentiment, Explosions in the Sky have
crafted a record comprised solely of ever-changing blanks to
be filled in. And though each of these tracks supposedly
tells stories, one needs only draw upon their own life to
understand the pathos explored. May these songs become a
soundtrack to your vanity.
-Kevin Adickes, December 19th, 2001