Explosions in the Sky - Your Hand in Mine

The sounds of the guitar speak to my soul. There is very little music I listen to that does not include a guitar, the opposite however, music is nothing but guitar, I listen to quite a bit of guitar music. I may have mentioned this in the past.

Sometime ago a friend sent me a link to an Explosions in the Sky song expressing his wish to hear my opinion about that band. It is always very nice when someone respects your musical tastes and wants to share something with you and are legitimately interested in your feedback. After listening to 2000’s “How Strange, Innocence” and 2003’s “The Earth Is Not a Cold Dead Place,” I knew I had been blessed with another guitar focused instrumental band that I would be enjoying hence forth. I took it as a compliment that my friend trusted me to like this band, it showed good taste by both of us and a respect therein.

It is good to have friends.

Explosions in the Sky hail from Austin, Texas, which is one of the US cities I most wish to visit someday. Consisting of three guitarist, Michael James, Munaf Rayani and Mark Smith, and a drummer Chris Hrasky, Explosions in the Sky’s music revolves primarily around the sound of guitar. In almost twenty years they have not a lineup change and that is impressive.

This is not the sort of band most people hear about often. The absence of lyrics eliminates them from the possibility of pop consumption, and long experimental instrumentals are not exactly the most popular genre of music. In fact, I suspect Explosions in the Sky are more famous for their work providing songs for various television show’s soundtracks than their albums. There is a logic to this band finding a place in soundtracks, their songs are very moody and ambient, perfect for filling a scene. However, this makes them all substance, no flash, an artistic minded person’s dream band, but invisible and silent to the conventional music scene. Obscure but great, a perfect choice for Music in Review.

The music of Explosions in the Sky has this power over me that cause me to fall into a trance where I listen and my mind wonders, which is great for my own personal creativity, even while at work, but this creates a trivial challenge remembering the individual songs. It takes some fantastic to stand out within such a series of beautiful melodies, but one song managed to so for me, “Your Hand in Mine.”

This is one of those times I wished I was better educated in music theory, so I could better dissect the magic of a song like “Your Hand in Mine.” Alas, I am but a poor player at such things, so I will have to use my layman’s understanding to express the jubilation of this masterpiece. I call it the crawl. The steady pacing towards complication, towards layers in canon. A methodical sequence of individual guitar notes dances from beginning to end, carrying the entire song on its journey. The other two guitars leap in for the climatic moments and depart and allow for the next bridge and resurface with greater passion every time. What I presume would qualify as the lead guitar in this situation, wails long and longingly during the various climax and when it finishes, and the solo guitar slows ever more so towards a sweet ending everything leaving the listener with unexplained feelings of hope.

No words required.

It has to be heard to be understood, so do so with the link provided.

I am very thankful I live in a world with music like Explosions in the Sky. I am also thankful for friends like the one mentioned earlier who turned me onto Explosions in the Sky. Two things in life I have always been able to count on to cheer me up and help me along, are my friends and music.

- King of Braves

P.S.

I also really like "Remember Me as a Time of Day" from the 2000 album "How Strange, Innocence":