Phases and Stages

Explosions in the Sky

Those Who Tell the Truth Shall Die, Those Who Tell the Truth Shall Live Forever (Temporary Residence) "This plane will crash tomorrow" states a now-prophetic blurb on the inside album sleeve. "Help us stay alive," pleads a slogan on the opposite page, underneath the sketch of an angel. Fear, hope, death, redemption ... ambitious subjects for any rock band, let alone a local one that utters not a single word. Explosions in the Sky let their music do the talking, and the message comes across loud and clear, soft and subtly, with a tightly focused passion unheard of from a band that uses only guitar, bass, and drums to communicate. The fireworks start right off with "Greet Death," a blinding flash of glorious guitar squall and crashing cymbals that, at the three-minute mark, fades into the night, replaced by a faint, contemplative melodic residue. These shards deliberately coalesce into an arresting whole, as bright and hopeful as the sunrise. "Yasmin the Light" lays down a pair of simultaneous melodies, one full of promise, one full of anxiety. Suddenly, the anxiety explodes into a fiery cloud of Mogwai-style violence. Just as abruptly, the distortion ceases, and the remaining line emerges with a more cheery tenor. These shifts and curves are the band's modus operandi, in which every theme is an image and every song a repository of drama as gripping in its intensity as it is friendly in its tuneful progression. Those Who Tell the Truth reveals scores of hypnotic instro-rock outfits as charlatans, and raises the bar for all musicians by holding expressiveness in its proper esteem, just above elegance.