THE EARTH IS NOT A COLD DEAD PLACE

By the mid-2000s, post-rock was by no means a fresh or original idea, any more than (say) jazz fusion was by the middle of the 1970s or symphonic prog was by 1977. That doesn't, of course, mean that it was impossible for bands to make a good post-rock album in 2003, or even a classic one - and indeed many did. But what it did mean is that you couldn't expect to get many props simply for playing in a standard, generic post-rock mode, any more than you could expect to impress people by playing generic and uninspired Yes-ripoffs in the late 1970s: by the time The Earth Is Not a Cold Dead Place came out, post-rock bands - even the founding fathers of the genre - really needed some sort of unique aspect to their sound to distinguish them from their peers.

Explosions In the Sky show little evidence of this on The Earth Is Not a Cold Dead Place. Supposedly, this is an album about love, but you'd never guess it from the rote repetition of Godspeed You Black Emperor-inspired atmospheres (which have more to do with melancholy desolation than love) on this album. Quite simply, Explosions In the Sky offer nothing beyond vanilla post-rock, long after that ceased to be impressive.