Explosions In The Sky – The Wilderness (CD)

Five years is a long time between proper studio records, and the Austin quartet used that stretch to push their signature guitar orchestrations into genuinely stranger territory, incorporating electronics and textural elements that sit alongside their post-rock foundations rather than replacing them. The result feels less like a return than an evolution, arriving at a moment when instrumental rock had drifted far from the emotional directness that made Explosions in the Sky essential in the first place.