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Explosions in the Sky Announce Tour

Explosions in the Sky have announced their first tour since 2020. They’ll spend much of September crossing the United States before heading to Europe in November. Find the full list of dates for the band’s The End Tour below.

In 2021, Explosions in the Sky recorded the score for a nature documentary about Big Bend National Park . Two years prior, they celebrated their 20th anniversary with a world tour and reissues of their 2000 debut, How Strange, Innocence , and their 2005 LP, The Rescue (Travels in Constants Vol. 21) . Their last studio LP was 2016’s The Wilderness .

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Explosions in the Sky:

08-11 Portland, OR - Pioneer Courthouse Square 08-12-13 Seattle, WA - Day In Day Out Festival 08-16-19 Coura, Portugal - Vodafone Paredes de Coura 09-15 Houston, TX - The Lawn at White Oak Music 09-16 Dallas, TX - South Side Ballroom 09-18 Nashville, TN - Ryman Auditorium 09-19 Atlanta, GA - The Eastern 09-21 St. Louis, MO - The Pageant 09-22 Omaha, NE - The Admiral Theater 09-23 Minneapolis, MN - First Avenue 09-25 Chicago, IL - The Salt Shed 09-26 Royal Oak, MI - Royal Oak Music Theater 09-28 Cleveland, OH - Agora Theater 09-29 Philadelphia, PA - Franklin Music Hall 09-30 New Haven, CT - College Street Music Hall 10-01 Boston, MA - Roadrunner 10-03 Washington, D.C. - 9:30 Club 10-05 Brooklyn, NY - Kings Theatre 11-06 Dublin, Ireland - Vicar Street 11-07 Manchester, England - Albert Hall 11-08 London, England - Troxy 11-09 Brussels, Belgium - Ancienne Belgique 11-11 Antwerp, Belgium - De Roma 11-13 Utrecht, Netherlands - TivoliVredenberg Grote Zaal 11-14 Berlin, Germany - Astra 11-15 Koln, Germany - Kantine 11-17 Paris, France - Bataclan 11-18 Lyon, France - L’EpicerieModerne 11-19 Barcelona, Spain - Sala Razzmatazz 11-20 Madrid, Spain - Riviera

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Colin Roberts

Interview: chris hrasky of explosions in the sky talks about why ‘end’ is not the end.

• December 15, 2023

The newest record by Explosions In The Sky  might be called End , but the band are nowhere near finished. Twenty-four years into their career, the influential instrumental group are still figuring out ways to push themselves creatively and to not repeat what they’ve already done. From the serene post-rock guitars of their early records to the vast, electronic-tinged soundscapes of their most recent work, it’s a delicate balance of staying true to their roots and experimenting with new ideas and sounds.

End , which was released via Temporary Residence on September 15, is the band’s eight full-length album, not including their extensive film soundtrack work. It pulls a bit from every avenue they have explored over the years, the band sounding as in command of their craft as ever. Drummer Chris Hrasky took some time to speak to us about the record, its title, and why they find writing an album to be more difficult than scoring a film.

What does the album’s title, End, represent?

We’re always throwing ideas around for titles, and for whatever reason that word, just someone in the band brought that up, and it sort of clicked for some reason. Not for any specific reason; it just sort of felt fitting for the times. It’s not meant to be necessarily this apocalyptic idea or anything like that, the end of everything. It was a lot of things. Part of it was a feeling of pleading almost, like can this all please end; everything is so crazy and loud, can we just hit reset or something? Some of it was that, and some of it was that in the last several years, we’ve all lost family members, and as we’re getting older, we’re thinking about our own mortality, I guess. I don’t know; it just somehow clicked with us.

We never really have a hard and fast idea of what the title means; we just sort of feel it. It just clicks, and that seemed like a good, evocative word that was pretty bold, and it just stuck. We were definitely worried when we announced the tour that people were going to think that we were breaking up, but once the record title was announced, that maybe calmed people down a bit, for whoever cared. Like with everything we do, it just felt right. We kind of go by what hits us between the guts, I guess.

Does the title influence or inform the music, or vice-versa?

This time the title came after we had written all the songs. I can’t remember if the title or the artwork came first. It’s been well over a year since that was all solidified. With this one we definitely had all the music written and somehow for whatever reason that title, in our minds, fit with the songs we had written. It’s interesting because the first half of the record is fairly optimistic feeling, and the second half of the record is a little darker, a little heavier, a little noisier. It just somehow made sense to us.

It had been seven years between full-length albums; when did the writing for End begin?

The last record came out in 2016, and we toured for a couple years behind that, and then in 2019, we did a 20th anniversary tour, and then as soon as that finished, COVID hit, and it was just a weird time when we weren’t making anything. In the early days, no one knew what was going on, and then we did a soundtrack in 2020, which was a nice way to take our minds off of all the nightmare of the world. Then we just started writing songs, I guess, in mid-2020, we started the first inklings of new songs.

We’re very slow. We’re very quick when it comes to soundtracks, but with our own records, it always just takes us a very long time. It was a seven-year absence, but we were pretty active that whole time, it was just aside from maybe the first six months of COVID where we weren’t doing anything. It was lots of touring mixed with COVID mixed with the fact that it always just takes us a very long time to come up with songs for a record. We’re definitely not speedy songwriters. Every song takes a very long time and goes through different iterations, and lots of pondering what the hell we’re even doing and how do we even write music—that sort of thing.

Why does the soundtrack work go faster?

The soundtracks are generally a lot easier for us for a number of reasons. First of all, you sort of have a map in front of you when you are doing a soundtrack—Here’s the story; here’s the scene; here’s a director telling you what they’re looking for. So you kind of have a guide, and you have a hard deadline—this has to be done by a certain point. So you have a lot of direction, whereas you don’t when you are writing your own songs, and it’s a lot more open-ended. And also with a soundtrack, by definition, it is ultimately more background music. Every piece that you write doesn’t need to be 12 minutes long and span all these different emotions and feelings; it can be a little two-minute piece. You’re scoring it to a certain scene or a specific mood that is set out for you. It’s basically someone else’s concept that you are trying to enhance to some degree.

When we start writing our own songs, it’s basically like, “what are we trying to do with this song?” It’s just the four of us scratching around trying to find something that we can connect with, so that always takes us a lot longer. They are very different approaches for us. It’s definitely more painstaking when we come up with our own stuff that is in its own universe outside of a movie or TV show.

Has the writing process for you changed over the years?

In the early days, we would write stuff much faster for a number of reason—A) we weren’t touring as much, B) we were just younger, and I think we were a lot less self-critical of what we were doing. We just kind of let it come out of us, and it would move a lot faster. Now, not that we second-guess things, but we are very self-critical. Also, it used to be a situation where the four of us would get together four days a week—We all lived in the same city, and that was our life completely—but now we’re older; we have families and kids; we’re scattered across the country, so that adds to the length of time.

Instead of us sitting in a room together, it’s file sharing and coming up with ideas, and every few months, we would get together and try to focus on certain ideas and hone in on them. So that process makes things longer, just geographically and logistically. Two of us are still in Austin; one guy is in Michigan, one is in Los Angeles, so it’s different. We’re not with each other 24 hours a day, which we used to be.

It’s a different way for us to work. We’d be sending files to each other over the course of a few months and slowly building on those, then get together and try to put these ideas together. It was definitely a bit of a learning curve as to how to do that and still make it feel like a unified band playing together. That took some time, for sure.

It’s a different process because we have a bigger catalogue now and we don’t necessarily want to repeat ourselves, and we’re not 24/7 living and breathing this like we used to. You have kids and other things that become more of a priority than the band so it slows the process down, but we’ve definitely figured out a way to make that work and adjusted to that arrangement pretty well. Hopefully it will not take us another seven years to write a record, but we’ll see what happens.

Does it become more deliberate than spontaneous at that point?

Yeah, I think so. Even back in the early days it was still very deliberate. We had very clear [ideas] but I think the longer you go on, you just don’t want to repeat yourself so you consciously have that in your head. We don’t want it to be a watered down version of something we’ve already done. That’s the goal anyway. I’m sure plenty of people will say it just sounds like everything we’ve done, which is fair. But it’s a little more deliberate now, and I think just the idea that we’re not with each other as much as we used to be. You just have to work through that and figure out a way to connect through long distances and navigate all the other things that are happening in people’s lives. We can’t be like, “Okay, let’s just hang out for eight hours every single day.” That’s just not feasible for any of us anymore.

There’s been more and more additional elements like keys, pianos and electronics added to your music over the years. Does this push to include these different sounds help keep you from repeating yourselves?

I don’t know how conscious we are of it. There’s a lot of piano on this record, and a lot of that is because Michael (James, guitarist/bassist) was playing piano a lot and would send us these piano lines, and it was like, “That could be the basis for a song.” Even working on soundtracks there’s more room to experiment, I guess, and we can incorporate ideas. Like, “We have a lot of piano on that soundtrack, maybe we should start putting more piano in our actual songs.” It kind of comes across that way. And just discovering new instruments and new ways of recording, it has just sort of evolved over time.

Is there ever a concern that additional elements might not translate into the live environment?

Yeah, we definitely ran into that with our last record. It was a challenge because that record was super layered and had tons of stuff going on. It took a while to figure out how to pull that stuff off live. For instance, live now we have an extra guy with us who can be a go-to man. He can play bass because the guy who plays bass is playing guitar, or he can trigger a sample or whatever. And that’s a new thing for us on the last two records. On some of the songs we were triggering samples because there’s just not enough hands and feet to play these parts. That was an adjustment.

And it’s an adjustment for this record too. We’ve recorded this record, we’re into it, now we need to figure out how to pull these songs off live. But at the same time not feel like we’re just playing along to a bunch of tracks. It still feels very live, but we do want to have these supplemental things. We just have to figure out a way to pull that off live. I think we’ve done pretty well. The last record there were definitely songs we just could not pull off in any good way live, they just didn’t work. This one, we’ve been able to play every song live in some form. The record in itself feels a lot more live than the last one. Even though there’s a lot of all this extraneous stuff, it feels like a rock band just playing their songs.

What stands out to you about End ?

It’s weird because we recorded that record almost a year ago. We recorded it last October. Normally when we finish a record, I’ll listen to it a lot for a couple months and then I sort of lose interest. But for whatever reason this one has stuck with me where I still really enjoy listening to it. I feel like we’re constantly trying to make an immaculate, perfect record. Not immaculate in the sense that it needs to sound real produced and super clean. To me, this feels, more so than anything else—and maybe this will change in six months—but right now this feels like we’ve maybe figured this out more than we have in the past. Which isn’t to say people are going to like it more than the old stuff, but for us, it feels like we reached a destination that maybe we’ve been subconsciously trying to get to for the past twenty-five years.

I think it’s good to be continuously looking back on the old stuff and thinking, “I’m not sure why we made that decision, or why it sounds this way.” A lot of that stuff was because in the old days we just had no budget and had to record as fast as we could, and mix it as fast as we could. Now we have a bit more breathing room for that and to actually spend time and get it the way we want it. But still, it was important for us that this record still feels very visceral and live. I feel like we succeeded at that, at least in our ears.

So if End is not the end, what comes next?

We’re going to be touring a lot, probably through the end of 2024 on and off. We’re also in the midst of working on music for a Netflix mini-series. In our downtime from the record and touring, we’re kind of working on that. That got delayed a bit because of the strike and whatnot. Now that seems like that’s going to be picking back up. So we’ll tour until the end of November for this year, and we usually try to take winters off because touring in the winter is just asking for trouble.

We’ll spend a lot of time doing soundtrack work. I don’t know when that show’s going to see the light of day, sometime next year, I think. So it’ll be a combination of that and touring and then once touring is over we’ll probably just not play music for a while. And then hopefully we’ll start working on new songs again. We never really have a real set plan. Stuff just sort of comes up and either we agree to do it or we don’t. So, yeah, we got a lot of stuff ahead, which is nice.

End is available now from Temporary Residence . Follow Explosions in the Sky on Facebook , Instagram , and Twitter for future updates.

Photo courtesy of social media

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• Nov 14, 2023

Explosions In The Sky - The End Tour -Review

All 📸 by Alexis Panidis

The majestic Albert Hall came alive with the entrancing melodies of Explosions in the Sky, weaving an auditory tapestry that continues to resonate within me. This band takes me on a trip down memory lane, back to the days when my understanding of good music was, admittedly, a bit naive. I vividly recall rifling through my friend’s extensive vinyl collection when 'The Wilderness' caught my eye. Its vibrant, geometric cover stood out amidst the sea of plain black records. Curious, I turned to my friend and asked, "What's this?" His face lit up with excitement as he held the album aloft, proclaiming, "This is post-rock; this is Explosions in the Sky," with a reverence as if he had just been given the Ten Commandments by God Himself.

From the very first note that resonated from the turntable, I was spellbound. My musical horizons were broadened like never before, ushering me into an awe-inspiring world of exploratory sounds, mesmerizing riffs, and lush soundscapes. Since that moment, I had harbored an ardent desire to experience their music live and to own my personal copy of 'The Wilderness'. Attending their gig at Albert Hall was more than just another concert - it was a milestone, a culmination of my musical journey with them. And indeed, it was everything I had hoped for and more.

Doors opening at 7pm, we got to the venue at 10 past with the job of securing an incredible spot which I would suggest anyone going to Albert Hall to follow suite. Top left is my go to place, we waited - should have brought a cushion as the benches do numb your arse giving me flashbacks to year 6 in primary school when you can sit on the benches at assembly.

The Texas superstars asked Stockport band Derailer to open the night. Tasked with setting the tone, these musicians took to the stage well, delivering a set well in line with the explorative sound of Explosions In The Sky. They commanded the audience, who perhaps may not have known them, but warmed our hearts and sufficed our appetite for a while longer as we eagerly awaited EITS.

In the intermission's buzz, heightened by Derailer's rocking set, I found myself running donw the steps to gain a copy of 'The Wilderness' vinyl, a treasure that will has given me a full circle moment into good music, a tear dropped I was happy and omplete as I then had to run up two flights of stairs, pain in my chest to sit down for the opening moments that we were all waiting for.

As the lights dimmed and the atmospheric smoked oozed out into the crowd Explosions in the Sky, the band that ushered me into the expansive realm of post-rock, took to the stage. the people erupted, they struck their chords and so the hour and half of pure instrumentalism began.

As masters of post-rock, Explosions in the Sky have a unique gift for creating soundscapes that are both intimately personal and grandly cinematic. Their performance at Albert Hall was a testament to this, taking the audience on a profound auditory journey.

The concert opened with " First Breath After Coma ", its delicate strums blossoming into a powerful crescendo, setting the tone for a night of dreamlike transitions and emotional depth. This opening piece seamlessly gave way to " Catastrophe and the Cure ", from their 2007 Album (and another of my faves) ' All of a Sudden I Miss Everyone ', a track that, like a rollercoaster, swayed between introspective melodies and peaks of euphoria, capturing a spectrum of emotions in its wake.

As the evening progressed, " All Mountains " emerged as a standout performance. This track, like a climb to the summit of a high peak, brought the audience to new heights of sensory experience, each guitar strum echoing the band's remarkable musical prowess.

Building on this crescendo, " The Only Moment We Were Alone " unfolded like a grand narrative. This epic composition, embodying the quintessence of the band's sound, enveloped the audience in a wave of emotive force, creating a moment suspended in musical transcendence.

In perfect synchrony, each member of Explosions in the Sky meshed like gears in a well-oiled machine, their harmonious interplay a testament to their profound connection and extraordinary capabilities as artists. The audience, whether seated or standing, was utterly captivated, swept up in the band's commanding presence and the sheer intensity they brought to the stage. Given that much of their performance is instrumental, it was impossible to divert one's gaze even for a moment. Each composition seamlessly transitioned into the next, their graceful flow punctuated by waves of applause that seemed to reverberate through the venerable walls of Albert Hall.

The concert drew to a close with " Your Hand in Mine ", a track that felt like a serene afterword to the evening's emotional storm. This closing piece left the crowd in a reflective hush, a fitting conclusion to a night that was less a series of performances and more a continuous, flowing odyssey of sound.

In essence, Explosions in the Sky's show at Albert Hall wasn't just a concert; it was an intertwined narrative of music and emotion, a journey through sound that resonated with the soul. Their ability to connect a sequence of individual tracks into a cohesive, emotive experience is what continues to define them as luminaries in the post-rock genre. We cannot wait to see them again and add another vinyl to our collection!

Explosions in the sky - Instagram // Spotify // Web

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Explosions in the Sky Announce 2023 “The End Tour” Dates

The post-rock band will trek North America and Europe this fall

Explosions in the Sky have very mysteriously announced a run of 2023 tour dates. The post-rock group will embark on “The End Tour” beginning this fall, and as for what the “end” actually entails here, your guess is as good as ours! Update: End is the name of EITS’s new album , due out on September 15th.

Much like Explosions in the Sky’s music, press materials for “The End Tour” are composed 0f very few words. We  do  know the dates, which begin on September 15th in Houston. The band will then make stops in cities including Dallas, Nashville, Atlanta, Chicago, Philadelphia, and New Haven, before heading off to Europe; that leg will include shows in London, Dublin, Berlin, Barcelona, and more.

You can fickets via StubHub , where orders are 100% guaranteed through StubHub’s FanProtect program. StubHub is a secondary market ticketing platform, and prices may be higher or lower than face value, depending on demand. See Explosions in the Sky’s “The End Tour” itinerary below.

In 2021, Explosions in the Sky provided the score to the PBS documentary Big Bend: The Wild Frontier of Texas . They also landed on our recent list of the top 10 post-rock albums .

Explosions in the Sky 2023 Tour Dates: 09/15 – Houston, TX @ The Lawn at White Oak Music 09/16 – Dallas, TX @ South Side Ballroom 09/18 – Nashville, TN @ Ryman Auditorium 09/19 – Atlanta, GA @ The Eastern 09/21 – St. Louis, MO @ The Pageant 09/22 – Omaha, NE @ The Admiral Theater 09/23 – Minneapolis, MN @ First Avenue 09/25 – Chicago, IL @ The Salt Shed 09/26 – Royal Oak, MI @ Royal Oak Music Theater 09/28 – Cleveland, OH @ Agora Theater 09/29 – Philadelphia, PA @ Franklin Music Hall 09/30 – New Haven, CT @ College Street Music Hall 10/01 – Boston, MA @ Roadrunner 10/03 – Washington, DC @ 9:30 Club 11/06 – Dublin, IE @ Vicar Street 11/07 – Manchester, UK @ Albert Hall 11/08 – London, UK @ Troxy 11/09 – Brussels, BE @ Ancienne Belgique 11/11 – Antwerp, BE @ De Roma 11/13 – Utrecht, NL @ TivoliVredenberg Grote Zaal 11/14 – Berlin, DE @ Astra 11/15 – Koln, DE @ Kantine 11/17 – Paris, FR @ Bataclan 11/18 – Lyon, FR @ L’Epicerie Moderne 11/19 – Barcelona, SP @ Sala Razzmatazz 11/20 – Madrid, SP @ Riviera

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Explosions in the sky announce 2023 "the end tour" dates.

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Explosions in the Sky Announce 2023 “The End Tour” Dates

The post Explosions in the Sky Announce 2023 “The End Tour” Dates appeared first on Consequence .

Explosions in the Sky have very mysteriously announced a run of 2023 tour dates. The post-rock group will embark on “The End Tour” beginning this fall, and as for what the “end” actually entails here, your guess is as good as ours!

Much like Explosions in the Sky’s music, press materials for “The End Tour” are composed 0f very few words. We  do  know the dates, which begin on September 15th in Houston. The band will then make stops in cities including Dallas, Nashville, Atlanta, Chicago, Philadelphia, and New Haven, before heading off to Europe; that leg will include shows in London, Dublin, Berlin, Barcelona, and more.

Still, no clues as to how “The End Tour” gets its name. For all we know it could be a farewell tour, a new album, or the anticipation of societal collapse. Either way, a ticket pre-sale begins tomorrow, April 19th, at 10:00 a.m. local using the fan code THEENDTOUR  or the LiveNation code VINYL . General sale follows this Friday, April 21st at 10:00 a.m. local, and you can grab yours at Ticketmaster .

Once tickets are on sale, you can also find them at StubHub , where orders are 100% guaranteed through StubHub’s FanProtect program. StubHub is a secondary market ticketing platform, and prices may be higher or lower than face value, depending on demand. See Explosions in the Sky’s “The End Tour” itinerary below.

In 2021, Explosions in the Sky provided the score to the PBS documentary Big Bend: The Wild Frontier of Texas . They also landed on our recent list of the top 10 post-rock albums .

Explosions in the Sky 2023 Tour Dates: 09/15 – Houston, TX @ The Lawn at White Oak Music 09/16 – Dallas, TX @ South Side Ballroom 09/18 – Nashville, TN @ Ryman Auditorium 09/19 – Atlanta, GA @ The Eastern 09/21 – St. Louis, MO @ The Pageant 09/22 – Omaha, NE @ The Admiral Theater 09/23 – Minneapolis, MN @ First Avenue 09/25 – Chicago, IL @ The Salt Shed 09/26 – Royal Oak, MI @ Royal Oak Music Theater 09/28 – Cleveland, OH @ Agora Theater 09/29 – Philadelphia, PA @ Franklin Music Hall 09/30 – New Haven, CT @ College Street Music Hall 10/01 – Boston, MA @ Roadrunner 10/03 – Washington, DC @ 9:30 Club 11/06 – Dublin, IE @ Vicar Street 11/07 – Manchester, UK @ Albert Hall 11/08 – London, UK @ Troxy 11/09 – Brussels, BE @ Ancienne Belgique 11/11 – Antwerp, BE @ De Roma 11/13 – Utrecht, NL @ TivoliVredenberg Grote Zaal 11/14 – Berlin, DE @ Astra 11/15 – Koln, DE @ Kantine 11/17 – Paris, FR @ Bataclan 11/18 – Lyon, FR @ L’Epicerie Moderne 11/19 – Barcelona, SP @ Sala Razzmatazz 11/20 – Madrid, SP @ Riviera

Explosions in the Sky Announce 2023 “The End Tour” Dates Abby Jones

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Explosions In The Sky Fire Up Another Slow Burning Epic On ‘End’ (ALBUM REVIEW)

photo credit Nick Simonite

• By Ryan Dillon
• One Comment

Explosions In The Sky has done exactly that. In a burst of pure musicianship, the band has gone further than most instrumental rock groups can say they’ve gone, racking up a plethora of soundtrack work and formulating a discography filled with timeless classics. The band has garnered a following through grandiose arrangements that span genres and tones all with no sense of urgency. The careful manipulation of their instruments forces their music to be measured but Explosions In The Sky still find ways to make their albums feel loose and warm. Such is the case for End , the band’s seventh studio outing. The album title is not referring to the band itself and thankfully so, Explosions In The Sky continue to expand on their signature sound over the course of seven face-melting tunes. Explosions In The Sky sounds as ambitious as ever on their latest outing, creating instrumentals that allow the most nuanced moments of these dense arrangements to shine in a daring attempt to create music that is vague yet direct in its messaging. 

End comes packaged with just over 45 minutes worth of music packed into a condensed tracklist. This makes this emotional rollercoaster of songs even more palpable, The fact Explosions In The Sky was able to follow a concept without sacrificing what makes the band so great is a true testament to their creative mindstate. These slow-burning instrumentals carry no sense of urgency but rather the excitement and conflict stem from the structure of these songs. Like a trick birthday candle, even the more intimate and sentimental dips in these songs never seem to extinguish the undeniable energy that flows through End . The band uses soft tones that explode in their signature style, and take notes from both tragic ending and happy ones to find the sonic direction of their seventh LP.  

Whether it’s rolling pianos or weeping guitars, Explosions In The Sky knows exactly how to manipulate their instruments to evoke such visceral feelings. The gentle balladry of “Peace or Quiet” boils over to distorted chaos while the intro, “Ten Billion People” follows a bouncy drum pattern to welcome you to End . The unpredictability of these songs stirs up butterflies in your stomach with each passing minute, giving the band the element of surprise backed by years of experience and unfiltered creativity. End feels very cinematic with each crescendo feeling like a plot twist. “All Mountains” features swooning string sections that are quickly juxtaposed by heady drum patterns, every element bleeding over the next for otherworldly textures. 

Explosions In The Sky didn’t miss a step on their first proper release in seven years. End combines the band’s veteran status with their love for soundtracking, except this time around there is no movie to accompany these songs. End feels like the soundtrack to life, placing you as the main character as the band crafts dynamic instrumentals that melt like gold and shine just as bright for their best album in recent memory. 

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This is the best album i have heard from this band/ and i own all of them. i have had it on repeat on a good set of headphones for 2 days and i feel a birth not death. this really seems there is no ‘end’. i am leaving this album on for at least another day. it will take you away. it bleeds and weeps and seeps. you will soar. spread your wings and take a deep breath.

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Explosions in the Sky (formed in 1999) is an American post-rock band that has surpassed the popularity of the post-rock genre with their instrumental-driven, symphonic playing style, hailing from Austin, Texas, U.S.

Formerly of the moniker Breaker Morant, Explosions of the Sky was formed in 1999 by drummer Chris Hrasky and guitarists Michael James, Munaf Rayani, and Mark Smith. The band made their debut recording at KVRX with the track “Remember Me as a Time of Day”, followed by the group’s full-length debut “How Strange, Innocence”. Distributed locally on CD-Rs, the album earned Explosions in the Sky a small local following and rehearsal footage found its way onto the feature film “Cicadas”, which later won an Austin Film Festival award.

Shortly after, the band signed with Temporary Residence Limited after fellow Austin band The American Analog Set submitted an Explosions in the Sky demo. The group’s sophomore album “Those Who Tell the Truth Shall Die, Those Who Tell the Truth Shall Live Forever” came under particular scrutiny for the connections with the September 11 World Trade Centre attacks. The album art work depicted an airplane with the caption “This Plane Will Crash Tomorrow” and was released on September 4, 2001. Explosions in the Sky supported the release opening for post-rock band Fugazi in 2002 and went on to release their poignantly-thick third studio album “The Earth Is Not a Cold Dead Place”. The album continued the band’s luscious and layered trend of musical production, however introduced an element of predictability that had been absent on its predecessors.

In 2004 the band scored the soundtrack to the 2004 film “Friday Night Lights”, and a year later re-released “Explosions in the Sky” to a growing and enthusiastic fan base. 2007’s “All of a Sudden I Miss Everyone” once again introduced a beautifully layered and unpretentiously chaotic album, followed four years later by “Take Care, Take Care, Take Care” once again on Temporary Residence. With the success of “Friday Night Lights” the band scored the soundtrack to the David Gordon Green film “Prince Avalanche” in 2013 and “Manglehorn” in 2014.

Live reviews

Let's start with the fact that I came in 40 minutes before the opening of the Roxy, did not expect, but in front of me stood 40 bodies, I met a friend from Russia, which left at the end, during this time i could see the bus for group and transport equipment. Czech warm-up appeared, they started playing music in the post-rock genre with psychedelic vocals in some moments, it is not surprising to me. After an hour they said goodbye, got good applause, and the time of waiting, when the first not much goes their chief technician and part of their main Rowdy and begins to check the equipment with other techniques, all of course professionally and very quickly. Well, that's the time when the band takes the stage smoothly, fly obligatory applause in length to the first composition, they are starting to make a re-review of its instruments, the setting, the group makes a lot of preparations before the concert, so the first few minutes of an organized moment. Traditionally Munaf says something on the language of the country where they stand, but he says that the Czech complicated language and could not understand it, in other matters, I understand it. When they played the first notes of Wilderness, I have as much goose bumps, next I'll be a little philosophize, Catastrophe, which is just awakened and opened the accumulated rage and let it go, it was very relaxed and easy on the soul. Greet Death, oh, it is simply a positive aggression that tells you "do in the life what you want and do not listen to anyone," a third-minute begins incredibly beautiful ambient instrumental that made me open it on a new, and love. Ecstatics returns positive energy and gives the mind a rest, First Breath After Coma, for me it is something more because combines motivation, struggle with himself, however this is not true obsession. Under The Birth and the Death I just withdrew into himself,i closed eyes, I had so many bright colors, sensations, I just enjoyed it. With Tired Eyes, Tired Minds, Tired Souls, for me it has always been a kind and difficult, but on a ninth minute waiting for a very nice surprise melancholic. Here eits acted very cleverly, Colors in Space, is perhaps the most relaxing for me, and it is smart because it really gives time to relax before two very beautiful and emotional creatures. I knew every song from the set list so it was very easy to listen and anticipate each note, it was clean, no bugs, traveled of delays, lost fingers on the other trouble, smooth, even too much, all perfectly trained. By tradition, the last 3 of the track: Your Hand in Mine, on something bracing, in my case it Disintegration Anxiety, to be prepared for a rather emotional and, in my opinion, with respect to the best The Only Moment We Were Alone, which may seem incredible if you listen to it several times.

At the last note Munaf effectively cut down the light, the rest of the band left to applause. That's all, my hands were given automatic applause for 5 minutes, as well as everyone do.

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Where, so often, post-rock live shows can represent exercises in overblown self-indulgence, Explosions in the Sky do their best to bring things back to basics. The Texans tick all of the right boxes for instrumental rock; setlist staple ‘The Only Moment We Were Alone’ has the exhilarating, sudden jumps between loud and quiet guitars covered, whilst cuts from latest record Take Care, Take Care, Take Care - such as the gorgeous ‘Postcard from 1952’ - have delicacy and nuance covered, too. They seem to have fallen into the positive habit of avoiding most of the obvious post-rock pitfalls, too; their sets tend to run to around the ninety minute mark, relatively pithy for their genre, and there’s no paranoid over-reliance on garish visuals to somehow make up for the lack of a frontman - the Texan state flag draped over an amp is about as showy as the spectacle usually gets. They’re living proof that instrumental music can be life-affirming without resorting to melodrama, and genuinely evocative without needing to be overly dark; with a seventh studio album surely not too far away now, it shouldn’t be long before a protracted UK absence is brought noisily to an end.

The post rock quartet Explosions In the Sky have been touring for over fifteen years and in this time they have become masterful instrumentalists due to the ability to continuously tweak and develop a live show whilst constantly testing out new material and differentiation with the baying crowds that continue to flock to their stage.

Despite having recently took off commercially in the US, they are still considered an acquired taste in the UK yet their latest tour could have easily turned around even the most skeptical of critic. Beginning with a celestial, dreamy 'Postcard From 1952' the band briskly gets to work proving exactly why they have garnered such critical acclaim.

The audience is instantly transfixed beneath the hazy multicoloured smoke as the band weave tales through their riffs and percussion. The poignancy of the vocal found on 'Catastrophe and the Cure' is chilling and by the finale of 'The Moon Is Down' the crowd is so secure and comfortable within the ethereal, majestic world of Explosions In the Sky it makes reality seem somewhat of a disappointment.

I've been lucky this summer. I've seen Explosions In The Sky twice. Thankfully, one of those shows was at a venue with a decent sound system. Or a decent sound guy. Or both.

Sadly, last night's show was a disappointment based purely on the sound. The visuals, marrying the amazing, emotive soundscapes with such atmospheric lighting creates a wildly impressive experience which worked in the Academy as well as at a much smaller venue earlier on this tour.

What really disappointed was the quality of sound coming from the stacks at the numerous drops, either screeching with feedback and little else or filling the room with the dull thud of the bass and low-range drums. I left well before the end, disappointed that a band with such captivating music failed to truly excite a partisan crowd.

Surely I wasn't the only one to feel sorry for both the band and the crowd who'd made as much effort to be there as the five guys on stage? The connection was clearly there, just not through the sound.

When I discovered Explosions in the Sky I was at least 15 years old and I was very impressed by the feelings they gave me when listening to their music, 15 years later the feeling is still alive and seeing them live has been, personally, one of the experiences most rewarding of my life, for the long wait, for the reward. The sound was beautiful, as far as they are concerned, its performance was impeccable (maybe the sound of the room was not the most appropriate but let's say that in terms of quality we give it 85%). Each passage of the concert has been magical and unforgettable. Many thanks to Explosions in the Sky for reviving me once again.

This was one of the very best live shows I have ever seen. The band hardly talks at all--they just show up and play with feeling. They didn't miss a single note, and the audience gets a chance to see how some of the more creative sounds are made (i.e., Munaf Rayani letting the reverberations from the different amps play the strings of his guitar). The music only stops when silence is the appropriate sound; the rest of the show is nonstop, one song bleeding over into the next. The synchronized lighting was true art. The band's capacity for putting 100% of their emotion into each song was amazing to see.

It's been a long 5 years since I've seen them and wasn't sure what to expect. I didn't think they could get any better than the last time I saw them live, but I was wrong. It was an Amazing show at Terminal 5. They've added another musician to the live act, which I was not aware of before the show. Originally wasn't crazy about the newest album, but I grew on me and after seeing 4 of the new songs performed live, I am now a huge fan of the new album. Setlist available at:

http://www.setlist.fm/setlist/explosions-in-the-sky/2016/terminal-5-new-york-ny-bfde93e.html

The venue is really nice and the performance was flawless. It was done in a way where one song blends with the next.

Acoustics of the Fox Theater suck for loud concerts though, the reverb was making it sound very busy at times and the subtleties of the new album's glitches and electronics were mostly gone.

As for the band, they not only don't have lyrics, they also don't speak to the audience at all. And there's no encores. So that was unusual.

All in all though, we enjoyed the concert a lot.

Incredible and moving. They played a continuous set for over 90 minutes, seamlessly bridging each song. It was a sonic opera/opus. I've never had a concert experience like it before. They gave a true gift to the audience, and as I was watching I had the repeated thought, "Thank God for artists!" Restored my faith that there are really good people in this nation even if crooks, liars and power-hungry scum dominate our media, corporations and politics.

Seeing EitS live compared to listening to them on a home setup is a completely different experience - their concert could best be described as a living wall of noise, with almost no let-up between tracks. A stunning lightshow further adds to the intensity of the experience.

My main gripe would be that they didn't play Your Hand In Mine live, which was heartbreaking as it was the deciding factor in making me buy tickets to go see them.

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Explosions in the Sky tour dates and tickets 2024-2025 near you

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Explosions in the Sky is not due to play near your location currently - but they are scheduled to play 22 concerts across 8 countries in 2024-2025. View all concerts.

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Discography, big bend (an original soundtrack for public television), the wilderness, manglehorn (original soundtrack), lone survivor, prince avalance (original soundtrack), take care, take care, take care, all of a sudden i miss everyone, friday night lights, the earth is not a cold dead place, those who tell the truth shall die, those who tell the truth shall live forever, how strange innocence, explosions in the sky.

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Showbox Presents

The end tour, explosions in the sky, support from exit angles.

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• Date Mon, September 30, 2024
• Venue Showbox SoDo
• Time 8:00 PM Doors 7:00 PM
• Ticket Prices* $42.50 - $45.00 Day of Show $45.00
• Ages All Ages to Enter, 21 & Over to Drink
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Drone light shows turn night skies into a canvas. Why you don't want to miss them

There's a buzz in the air − literally − and it's turning the night sky into a blank canvas for a growing medium: art and animation produced by drones.

After roughly a decade of advances in what drones can do, swarm drone light shows are hitting their stride and gaining a foothold in more public spectacles that were once almost exclusively fireworks-centered: Super Bowl halftime shows, baseball games, conferences and, of course, Fourth of July celebrations.

What began as a novelty − the ability to send up multiple drones and synchronize them to make patterns − has evolved into more elaborate and larger-scale light shows. The demand for these shows has opened up new opportunities for companies that specialize in the lengthy planning and setup involved in sending up hundreds of drones at once.

Bernard Ozarowski, president of Alexandria, Virginia-based Pixis Drones, applied a video game analogy to the rapid advances in drone light show sophistication.

"To make an analogy to a different medium, we're just getting past the Atari days; maybe we're through the Intellivision, but it's not going to take us 50 years to get to a PlayStation 5. The technology is evolving very, very quickly and improving every couple of months."

Pixis Drones has staged numerous shows that span game launches, television premieres and sporting events, including Super Bowl LVI in Los Angeles in 2022.

"It's about the emotional connection to the people on the ground," Ozarowski said. "We can do what fireworks can't. We can tell a story and make people feel something."

Drone delivery: Chick-fil-A via drone delivery? How the fight for sky dominance is heating up

How drone light shows work

In much the same way a marching band performs a football halftime show in which each musician must hit a precise mark on the field at a certain time in the music, each drone is preprogrammed to hit a finite coordinate in the air at a preset time.

These coordinates are stored as flight paths in simulation software on the pilot-in-charge's computer. This same software can simulate wind conditions other variables to ensure a smooth show. When setting up for a show, crews arrange the drones − or stacks of drones, depending on the size of the show − in an orderly grid. Each drone is numbered and corresponds to a node in the computer.

The specific kind of drone Pixis and Sky Elements use is a Uvify IFO swarm drone. It's small − 10.8 inches wide − and has a horizontal speed of nearly 33 feet per second. Each drone carries an array of three 24-bit RGB LED lights that can produce millions of colors.

Are drone light shows safe?

Drone show operators routinely file for waivers from the Federal Aviation Administration that allow them to fly drones at night and exceed the 400-foot ceiling usually enforced for drones in U.S. airspace.

Though not entirely without risk − these are 2-pound aircraft with propellers, after all − trained pilots running the shows have safety plans in place that include the flight area, a virtual boundary called a geofence and a safety team that includes visual observers and perimeter watchers. If a drone were to cross the geofence, generally set 150 to 200 feet around the flight area where there are no people, onboard commands either force the drone to return to the landing area or drop from the sky to reduce risk to people.

To illustrate how this looks, here is an example of the flight safety area for a show Pixis is staging in Gallup, New Mexico, for the city's Fourth of July "Stars & Stripes Celebration" at the Gallup Sports Complex, with safety zones represented as 400-foot-high boxes:

How big can drone shows be?

Drone light shows are limited only by the number of drones and the battery life. Though safe battery performance falls in the 10- to 15-minute mark, drone operators can send out multiple waves of drones to stagger the optimal flight times.

Tyler Kubicz, a production manager with Sky Elements, a national drone show company based in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, says the shows have room to grow as the technology evolves.

"The artistry of drone shows is only expanding with all these improvements," Kubicz said. "Our team continues to push the production and artistic boundaries for drone shows."

Sky Elements has performed many high-profile drone light shows for Major League Baseball games, Fourth of July celebrations and, most recently, was featured on NBC's "America's Got Talent."

Kubicz says Sky Elements' company record for drones used in a single show is 1,592, set in November 2023 at an expo in Orlando, Florida.

As of May 1, the world record for the number of swarm drones flown simultaneously is 5,293 , set by Uvify in South Korea.

Are drone light shows more pet-friendly than fireworks?

Though many drone light show runners coordinate with fireworks and pyrotechnics, they point out the advantages of drone-only light shows: a more approachable experience for military veterans stricken with PTSD, neurodivergent people and house pets that get easily stressed by fireworks explosions.

Drone shows "open up these types of communal experiences to people who otherwise would be excluded, and I think that's particularly relevant as we head into the Fourth of July holiday season," Ozarowski said. "We open up new possibilities for people who would otherwise not be able to enjoy these celebrations."

SOURCES Pixis Drones, Sky Elements, Uvify , Tech It Out with Marc Saltzman

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Major explosion causes 'fountains of diamonds' to erupt from Earth's crust

The natural world is constantly surprising us, and now new research has suggested that ’fountains of diamonds ’ could be sent shooting up to the surface of the Earth as part of a major geological event.

Supercontinents breaking up could send them spewing up from deep within the Earth’s core, according to research undertaken by Thomas Gernon, who is a professor of Earth and climate science at the University of Southampton.

Diamonds are formed around 150 kilometres below our feet and sent firing upwards by kimberlite eruptions which can travel up to 133 kilometres per hour and create enormous explosions on the surface, stated research published in Nature .

Gernon and his team looked into these kimberlites and their research found that the eruptions regularly take place around 22 million to 30 million years after plates begin to pull apart. One of the cases pointed to in the research came around 25 million years after the supercontinent Gondwana began breaking up in now what is Africa and South America.

The pulling apart of the plates leads to rock from the upper mantle and lower crust to mix and flow against each other, causing instability and ultimately leading to the eruptions.

It also leads to rock, water and carbon dioxide combining with minerals like diamonds, which all mixes together to create explosive rushes towards the surface of the Earth – and the researchers hope that their work could help in the search for unexplored diamond deposits.

Gernon said: "The diamonds have been sat at the base of the continents for hundreds of millions or even billions of years. There must be some stimulus that just drives them suddenly, because these eruptions themselves are really powerful, really explosive."

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• House of the Dragon

House of the Dragon’s epic dragon battle hinged on the details

Firebreather-on-firebreather action meant evolving the design work from Game of Thrones

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Designing a full-grown dragon hasn’t changed much since the final seasons of Game of Thrones , but pulling off a dance with dragons? A completely different and vastly more complicated story, says the VFX team behind House of the Dragon season 2 .

Sunday night’s fourth episode brought the feud between the Blacks and the Greens to Rook’s Rest for one of the franchise’s most ferocious hours. What the episode lacked in the suffocating scale of Hardhome , showrunner Ryan Condal and director Alan Taylor made up for in big flippin’ dragon action. Aegon, riding Sunfyre, arrives at Rook’s Rest to lay waste to a helpless human army. Rhaenys, on Meleys, swoops in to put a stop to the bloodthirsty boy king. Then Aemond and the elder dragon Vhagar enter the fight to wreak havoc. Dragons fall, riders die, and explosions decimate the surroundings. In painting a picture of the scene to VFX supervisor Dadi Einarsson, Condal likened the effect of Aegon’s dragon crash to a napalm drop and the entirety of the encounter to history’s most gut-wrenching moments.

“The subtext of the scene is: It’s a line in the sand,” Einarsson says. “It’s all been hand-to-hand combat, but this is like they’re experiencing nuclear war for the first time.”

Tom Horton, House of the Dragon ’s VFX producer, says the dragon brawl at Rook’s Rest — which at a point becomes 12 minutes of nonstop CGI action — “was the most difficult sequence. It was the one that we finished last.” The process began with considering character; the audience was familiar with the look and feel of Drogon, Rhaegal, and Viserion from Game of Thrones , and designs carried back in time to the era of House of the Dragon . But season 2 demanded even more consideration of personality and rider dynamic. The dragons had to be “characters in the show, and not just monsters or vehicles,” Einarsson says. “And the [battle] scene amplifies and exaggerates the character traits that Ryan had described to us.”

Through performance and often microscopic animation choices, Einarsson and VFX producer Tom Horton set out to breathe life into their pairs of combatants to raise the stakes of the fight. For Rhaenys and Meleys, the team wanted to strike an “immense kind of foreboding sadness as they go off. They kind of go into battle with dignity. [...] We tried to reflect a bit the character of Meleys through Rhaenys and their relationship, how they kind of interact with each other. It’s kind of a stoic and quiet regal character.”

Sunfyre presented a different challenge for the reality of Westeros, says Horton. Described by George R.R. Martin’s Fire & Blood historian narrator as one of the most beautiful dragons ever to exist, the team searched the animal kingdom for reference points for animals that were naturally brightly colored or iridescent without looking “fantasy.” The short of it: They spent months looking at frogs. “But the bigger the [reptiles] get, they [tend to] get kind of matted and brown, and bigger and lumpier. The trick was to get something that could scale to dragon size.”

Then there was Vhagar, the old matriarch, who Condal would say “lived way beyond and shouldn’t be.” Besides her literal wing decaying with age, the team wanted battle-ready Vhagar to feel like a big grump. “The actual physicality of the dragon really does often govern kind of what the dragon ends up doing,” Horton says.

“She’s a cantankerous, angry old thing,” Einarsson adds. “She just wants to go out there and just kill. So when they’re out there and finally she gets to kind of lumber up and fly toward the enormous thing that she is, when Aemond finally tells her ‘dracarys,’ she’s just straight at it and just blows them straight out of the sky. She’s happy to take the life of Meleys.”

To capture scale and impact, Einarsson and the crew were meticulous over every wingbeat. For bigger dragons like Vhagar, viewers should feel the power of a single flap that sends wind blowing across the land as she comes out over the treetops. Smaller dragons like Sunfyre or Jacaerys’ Vermax have snappier movements, allowing them to dart across the sky but make less of an impact on the environment. Horton says that the House of the Dragon team went above and beyond almost any job he’s been a part of in terms of building CG models for the dragons, intricately detailed skeletons and muscles that are “massive to render” and make working with VFX houses around the world, who supply secondary animation on top of the models, a tremendous chore. But it’s worth it: Though lots of physics-based simulation is used to create wing vibrations to create the finished dragon effects, the workflow is set up to allow for an enormous amount of tweaking that no one watching might ever notice.

“I didn’t even think we could tweak that much,” Horton says. “‘This shoulder lifts here, but there’s this bone!’ They’re all talking about how this bone would overlap with the tendons, and they’re getting a little bit too tense too early and… Jesus, the anatomy and the muscularity… We’re really going right down to that level of detail that’s in the model.”

All the big-picture dragon considerations collided for episode 4’s most gasp-worthy moment: When Aemond and Vhagar surprise a seemingly triumphant Rhaenys and Meleys for one more tussle. The elder beast ultimately shreds Meleys to death, and, with no other option, Rhaenys falls with grace.

Horton says the VFX team worked tirelessly with Condal, Taylor, and editor Katie Weiland to finesse the moment of connection between Meleys and Rhaenys that would let the futility of the battle sink in. Early versions of the scene locked the camera on Meleys being attacked by Vhagar, without a more overt cut to Rhaenys. “We rendered that out and we cut that together, and realized, Hey, are we missing something ,” Horton says. “‘We [wanted to] pull the camera back. Then we tried bites at different points and reactions.

“It was really about finding the emotional sweet spot where we see the eye. I think even when we finally nailed it there was one more tweak we had to do. I really wanted the eye to close at that point — we needed that connection. So it was so finely tuned in terms of timing, emotionally, to get the right performance. With actors you do like 12 takes to hit the marks, and we probably did a similar amount but in CGI, backwards and forwards. That’s obviously really complicated because it’s a CGI creature and we’re working with companies in other countries.”

For Einarsson and Horton, the major difference between House of the Dragon seasons 1 and 2 is a leveling up of location shooting. The types of scenes that were previously produced using an LED backdrop on a “volume” stage were more often shot on location in season 2 with constructed sets (and hours spent dragging the crew up mountains). Staging the dragon sequences demanded equal reality — if Sunfyre was going to plummet out of the sky, it absolutely had to feel like a “747-size creature that’s smashed into the ground.”

“From the very beginning, all of the producers and all of the directors, everyone was completely signed on to making an epic season,” Einarsson says. “There was no cutting any corners on that.”

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