HOW STRANGE, INNOCENCE

Initially this album was only available though Explosions In The Sky gigs but has since been issued so those who have become drawn to this Texas outfit on a wider scale, like myself, can get a taster of what the band sounded like on their debut effort. And as it is, it is a good one too. Judging from the albums that have come since the recording of this one, Those Who Tell the Truth Shall Die, Those Who Tell the Truth Shall Live Forever and The Earth Is Not A Cold Dead Place, the band have grown and progressed from the release of How Strange, Innocence, in 2000. While the recording may well be minimal and the sound may be not completely developed the potential is certainly there. The album is packed full of guitar anthems, slow moving passages with lots of emotion. "A Song For Our Fathers" starts off with the sound of what I can only believe is a Huey, so we get landed right into the landscape of a war and then captivated by the bands soundscape as they weave though simple and melancholic bass and guitar lines, both electric and acoustic before fading out with that distant chopper sound... Much of the intros to the tracks on this album can come across like eighties alternative/indie rock music songs, but with a pulse. And it is never too long before the band drift through what can now be deemed Explosions In The Sky music, as opposed to just sticking them under a post rock banner, for which the can easily fit if need be. "Magic Hours" may tend to be repetitive but it is never boring, as it swoops through clean instrumental lines that are building and ebbing all the while. What does draw the album back somewhat is the sparse production where there can often be a lack of sonic dynamics, which in turn is part of the indie like sound. But songs like "Magic Hours", the moving "Glittering Blackness" (with touches of good Mogwai) and the excellent and anxious "Time Stops", fortunately, transcend this. How Strange, Innocence if a fine album. It does not have the constant playability of The Earth Is Not A Cold Dead Place, but then, what does?