THE WILDERNESS

The celebrated Austin quartet spent the previous half-decade doing movie scores, and on their first stand-alone album since 2011 the group appears stuck in that same, soundtrack mindset. In place of the expected "cathartic mini-symphonies" (their own words) the new album collects a random assortment of shorter instrumentals, each one attractive in its own modest way but together not adding up to an impressive sum.

Every track might have been a leftover doodle from an unrealized film commission, buffed to a spotless high-gloss sheen but hardly developed beyond the level of an impeccable demo. My apologies for using the lowest adjective in a Proghead's critical arsenal, but the dreaded m-word applies here: "The Wilderness" is a very mainstream album, tailor-made for wider commercial appeal with its less challenging, easier-on-the-ears Post Rock aesthetic.

There's nothing wrong with taking the low road, for a change of scenery. But the means to that end required the band to downplay all the uncanny magic that made their earlier albums so compelling. The title track is a good example, presenting a not unpleasant techno variation of the classic EitS sound, more effects-driven than usual but still evocative, up to a point. Previously the music would have risen gradually to a heavenly crescendo, instead of ending suddenly on an unresolved fadeout, well before the five-minute mark.

No album by artists this sensitive or intelligent is going to be a complete sell-out. But it's certainly the band's weakest offering since "The Rescue" (2005): a shallow wade into lukewarm waters from a group more accustomed to the raptures of the deep.

The new album from Explosions in the Sky is disappointing for a number of reasons. First of all, on this album they jettison the instrumentation that made them so unique (3 electric guitars/sometimes bass, and drums) and the intricate counterpoint of the guitarists playing repeated lines up the register that made albums like 'The Earth is Not a Dead Cold Place' (TEINACDP) so memorable, and which set the pattern for what I think of as the EITS 'sound' (that album stands for me as their ultimate musical statement. Most of that is gone here. Instead, we have a lot of washy synthesizers, with some repeated patterns but much more simplistic compositions, and often electronic-sounding drums. Secondly, the dynamics have been significantly reduced - no more going from quiet as a whisper to full-tilt crush like on their earlier albums. Instead, we have a bunch of mellow snapshots that either remain at a constant volume, or start quiet and build only slightly. Finally, the compositions are not memorable. This is background elevator music. I think the time they have spent composing for movie soundtracks has affected their judgement on this release. Indeed, this could easily be a collection of movie soundtrack outtakes being presented as new band material. On the whole, none of the music is 'bad' or off-putting. It is just so neutral, arousing very little emotion. I have listened to this five times now, and I find it does not stand up to multiple listens, just gets more boring with each listen (I always make a point of listening to an album multiple times before I review it, as often the degree of musicality only becomes evident once one is familiar with the music). Go for their earlier albums (especially TEINACDP) if you want to explore this band. I give this 3.8 out of 10 on my 10-point scale, which translates to 2 PA stars. (The cover art is great though, so it has that going for it).