The Earth Is Not a Cold Dead Place

Yo this shit is actually hella pleasant bro. 9/10

Post-rock. Instrumental. Agradable. Un 4, venga.

I listened to this album as I walked along my local beach on a sunny winter morning, picking up beach glass. This soundtrack made me feel like I was saving the world, rather than just the tender feet of beachgoing babies and doggies.

Great post rock record, I’d rank below god speed and Mogawi, but still worthy of this list and one I listen to frequently.

The Earth Is Not a Cold Dead Place is a beautiful post-rock album by Explosions In The Sky. To be honest the wiki page about maybe it possible "being about 9/11" and the album "without lyrics" just annoyed me. It's an album about pain, loss and hope and if an album is instrumental, it does not have lyrics. Please let it be interpreted as you feel like, but do not try to force it on others. It sounds a bit like Mogwai, but with less distortion and on a quieter tone. Great melodies and simple harmonics of two guitars intertwining.

Heard this before but needed to revisit it. Glad I did. Solid post rock. Enjoyed it. Should have been on the original list.

Washes over you like a mystical, majestic waterfall. I can't listen to this without thinking of Friday Night Lights, a great TV show. 4 stars.

I enjoyed The Earth Is Not a Cold Dead Place, it reminded me of stuff I've heard and liked from maybeshewill, lovely melodic instrumental rock that captures and tells a story in quite a minimalist way. Very easy to listen to and would happily listen again, think it's a low 4, good addition.

This worked for me. The vibes were just vibes I was wanting to feel. My personal rating: 5/5 My rating relative to the list: 5/5 Should this have been included on the original list? Slight yes

I very much love postrock like this! The atmosphere it creates just hits certain buttons

One humid night years ago, a girl played me Your Hand in Mine on a hotel rooftop in Vietnam overlooking the sparkling lights. Didn’t read into it too much though.

I often think of Explosions In The Sky as the spiritual siblings of Godspeed You! Black Emperor. You can easily detect a major resemblence, but their personalities are very different. While GY!BE depict hellish post-apocalyptic urban landscapes, Explosions In The Sky manage to make a similar sound into something far more optimistic and powerful. At the moment, we probably could also use a bit more optimism in our lives.

Beautiful. Thank you for sharing.

ooohh i love this record

Post-rock with the edges smoothed out

Pop adjacent music without lyrics or singing has more heavy lifting to do and risks unflattering comparison to more highbrow typically instrumental genres like classical and jazz. This holds it own pretty well in that context, I enjoyed it and stayed engaged throughout. I'm not sure it made that deep of an impression however but I bet they'd be a good time live.

Post rock masterpiece

I really enjoyed this, but I'm a sucker for some good prog.

Don't do drugs, kids

Maybe one of my favorite totally instrumental albums we’ve listened to. Would’ve been better with lyrics.

Rating: 6/10

Standard post rock

Love this band

Aight

As much as I believe that post-rock as a whole genre has been done dirty by Dimery and co., I still think you need to separate the wheat from the chaff there somehow. You have the first league: Godspeed You! Black Emperor / Silver Mount Zion, Mogwai, Sigur Rós -- to which you can add important forbears like Slint, Talk Talk and Labradford, or later "jazzier" acts such as Tortoise, Do Make Say Think, Bruit... And then you have the second league: Explosions ln The Sky, Red Sparrowes, PG Lost... What differentiates the two leagues in my eyes is that the first has found idiosyncratic ways to stand out from the pack and release a body of work that both defines AND transcends the genre -- which has allowed its representatives to find genuine intensity, melodic imagination or topical relevance for their music. And that first league has also constantly avoided one-note intents, with bands often renewing their grammar in meaningful ways at some point or another of their career. Conversely, it feels to me that the second league simply "illustrates" the core ingredients of the genre while rarely challenging the latter. Explosions In The Sky admittedly renewed their own grammar and overall sound themselves with their later soundtrack work and last two albums -- *The Wilderness* (2016) and *End* (2023). But maybe that renewal was a little too late reception-wise to create any significant impact for me... Not that Explosions ln The Sky are a bad band per se. All the names in the "second league" up there are worthy of respect for toiling their way into post-rock in such a dedicated fashion, and they have all churned out a fistful of stellar tracks. When it comes to the Texan act, I tend to prefer the one album they released before *The Earth Is Not A Cold Dead Place*, named *Those Who Tell The Truth Shall Die, Those Who Tell The Truth Shall Live Forever*. I find that previous record more gripping, more varied and more astute on a purely musical level. I don't care that much for their soundtrack for the *Friday Night Lights* film -- which has clearly helped them get popular stateside -- but I quite like their subsequent LPs *Take Care, Take Care, Take Care* and *All Of A Sudden, I Miss Everyone*... And I simply LOVE the very adventurous remix album Explosions In The Sky released for that latter LP, which I consider one of the best remix albums of all times -- this one being handled by luminaries going from Jesu and The Paper Chase to Mountains and Four Tet... But I digress, once again... What about *The Earth Is Not a Cold Dead Place*, then? It's definitely "pleasant". Yet I simply can't understand why it's the band's most popular work. It's VERY one-note. It tends to be very "flat", either harmonically or rhythmically. So many musical elements are strictly following the grids offered by pretty standard chord sequences. The unsurprising outcome is logically very predictable... And for me, the music relies too much on major harmonies, sucking any meaningful stakes out of it. Things admittedly get a little darker, livelier and more ominous in the second halves of "Six Days At The Bottom Of The Ocean" and "Memorial", maybe... But honestly the direction is not going dark or ominous enough for my tastes, even there. What I find particularly mind-boggling is the fact that closer "Your Hand In Mine" is clearly being singled out by fans on streaming services -- because of its inclusion in the Friday Night Lights soundtrack? Just like the rest, "Your Hand In Mine" can't be labelled as a "bad" composition. But for me there's absolutely nothing to differentiate this closer from the first two long cuts in the album. Also, the current global score for this record in this generator simply astounds me. What is it that I'm not "getting"? Maybe what die-hard fans love in this record is actually the "one-note intent" itself. What I hear as harmless and toothless might sound as "pure" or "ascetic" or "iconic" for those fans. Like some sort of platonic ideal for the genre... Personally I can't help shake the feeling that Explosions In The Sky was just "going through the motions" to an extent with this project. Great musicians not overthinking things, and going with the melancholic, albeit all-too-gentle flow... Maybe my own Earth has turned into a cold dead place itself, barring me from accessing what so many other folks find natural to access... Or maybe being merely "nice" and "pleasant" is what has turned the Earth into a cold dead place. If that's the case, the irony is priceless here... 2/5 for the purposes of this list dedicated to essential albums. 7/10 for more general purposes (5 + 2) ---- Number of albums from the original list I find relevant enough to be mandatory listens: 465 Albums from the original list I *might* include in mine later on: 288 Albums from the original list I won't include in mine: 336 ---- Number of albums from the users list I find relevant enough to be mandatory listens: 110 Albums from the users list I *might* select for mine later on: 117 Albums from the users list I won't select for mine: 259 (including this one ) ---- Émile, *quatre* nouveaux messages pour toi au dessus, du *Solid State Survivor* de Yellow Magic Orchestra au *Atrocity Exhibition* de Danny Brown

Sparse post rock instrumentals that left no impression on me.

A little too much of nothing here for my tastes.