Explosions in the Sky: The Earth Is Not a Cold Dead Place (2LP) [TEMPORARY RESIDENCE]

Why you'll love it

This 2LP set gives "Your Hand in Mine" a side of its own and carries an etching of birds and the album's title sentence on side four. Producer John Congleton recorded and mixed the whole album in three days.

This edition

• 2LP set
• Etched fourth side

About the album

Explosions in the Sky formed in Austin in 1999 and had two albums behind them when they headed home to Midland, Texas, to make the third. They held down day jobs and rehearsed in an office building basement, with Mark Smith and Munaf Rayani on guitars, Michael James on bass and Christopher Hrasky on drums.

There are no words, and the guitars do all the talking. "First Breath After Coma" builds slowly into a towering crescendo, "The Only Moment We Were Alone" swells and crashes, "Six Days at the Bottom of the Ocean" (written with the Kursk submarine in mind) is the band's own pick for the album's darkest moment, and "Memorial" leads into the uplift of "Your Hand in Mine." The whole thing runs 45 minutes across five tracks.

It arrived on Temporary Residence in November 2003 to wide critical acclaim. The etching says the Earth is not a cold dead place because you are listening; we'd add, gently, that the volume knob helps.

Also at Kops: more Explosions in the Sky on vinyl · browse Alternative

Tracklist

Listen

On Temporary Residence (cat# TRR 61), the 2003 album.