Five albums into their career, Explosions In The Sky are not about to make major adjustments to their modus operandi. This means that Take Care Take Care Take Care is the same as its predecessors, only more so: majestically portentous swaths of quasi-epic guitar, metronomic drumming and a determination to cleave to the Alan Vega-coined drone-rock dictum that minimal is maximal. This approach works brilliantly, because the Texan post-rockers have crafted six elegiac instrumentals that marry an expansive sense of experimentation with a ferocious intensity. They refer to these charged, yearning compositions as "cathartic mini-symphonies," and it doesn't sound pretentious because, like their inspiration and musical touchstone Mogwai, Explosions In The Sky approach their music as high art rather than sonic doodling.

Whether they award their epic soundscapes philosophically questing titles ("Human Qualities") or elliptically obscure ones ("Postcard From 1952") the end result is the same: hypnotically inventive and focused journeys through the outer reaches of cosmic stoner rock, powered by little more than meticulously treated and layered guitars and an audaciously limitless sense of musical possibility. Explosions In The Sky launched their career, 12 years ago, with the express intention of being a "sad, triumphant rock band"; these… read more »