Explosions In The Sky: "Welcome, Ghosts"

There are only a handful of bands that produce music that has actually changed my life and one of them is Explosions In The Sky. Before the first time I heard their song “First Breath After Coma,” music had always been an entirely explicable [read: factual] experience, just my ears picking up various vibrations and my brain rendering those signals into a collection of sounds that I could understand as a song or album or genre, whatever the case… but EITS took that to a different level; more than just vibrations or sounds or science, perhaps a spiritual understanding or belief in the miracles of sound and how deep one can ride those hypnotic waves. It all happened during one particularly pondrous, debonair afternoon, laying in bed as a matter of fact, when the first notes from “First Breath After Coma” came flowing out of my stereo….then the bass, getting faster, louder, a music interpretation of re-animation… and I actually felt my heart beating with the music, felt a wave of euphoria wash over me…it was completely surreal and entirely changed my attitudes towards the pervasive quality of [some] music.

Naturally, I’ve been waiting seemingly forever for EITS to complete a new album and to tour again (I’ve never seen them!). 2005′s The Rescue slightly subdued that wild anticipation but only temporarily… it wasn’t the epic album I’d been looking for, but to be fair, it wasn’t a really an official LP release, at least not in the same way as their other most recent album, 2003′s The Earth Is Not A Cold Dead Place (and their first soundtrack for 2004′s Friday Night Lights). Finally, with the upcoming release of All Of A Sudden I Miss Everyone, the wait is over… I’ll be sucked into oblivion as I was in 2003 and will most likely once again come out with a somewhat altered frame of mind… ahh the power of dru–err, I mean music. Here’s an MP3 of one of the six songs on the upcoming album:

[MP3] Explosions In The Sky – Welcome, Ghosts [13.2 MB]

It’s hard to exactly pinpoint why I think this song is so strong, but I believe that’s the effect of loving a band to death: any “reason” that you can give behind the devotion blurs as the connection to the music grows stronger, save for hyperbolic claims like “OMG this band is soooooo good like def check them out!” Anyone already a fan of EITS (and post-rock in general) will most likely appreciate this song and the emotion it exudes; it’s a song that’s easy to get lost in, something typical of EITS’s music. While it doesn’t approach the ethereal “First Breath After Coma,” it certainly rings true to EITS’s well-established style and tone. If you’re aren’t yet a fan of the band (you should be, all of you), you’ll still most like find this song comforting…and it will hopefully be a gateway into the rest of the band’s catalog.

All Of A Sudden I Miss Everyone will be released on February 20th in the U.S. from label Temporary Residence. Check out the links below for MP3s, tour dates, and more…but first, here are a few more MP3s from EITS’s previous releases, courtesy of their official site and record label:

[MP3] Look Into The Air – from How Strange, Innocence [2000]
[MP3] A Song For Our Fathers – from How Strange, Innocence [2000]
[MP3] Memorial – from The Earth Is Not A Cold Dead Place [2003]
[MP3] Your Hand In Mine – from The Earth Is Not A Cold Dead Place [2003]
[MP3] A Poor Man’s Memory – from Those Who Tell The Truth Shall Die, Those Who Tell The Truth Shall Live Forever [2001]
[MP3] Yasmin The Light – from Those Who Tell The Truth Shall Die, Those Who Tell The Truth Shall Live Forever [2001]