Take Care, Take Care, Take Care

They are still a force to be reckoned with and they still write some of the best and most beautiful instrumental music but without a small revolution in sound; their catalogue will (albeit, beautifully) end up blending together like one long song.

Take Care, like all of the EITS albums, still has quite a lot going for it: its bombastic gestures are still appropriately dramatic, its production still crackles and shines exquisitely, its conventional undulations are still paced for maximum emotional effect. But there is no surprise or wonder to be found here, no chances or risks taken.

The songs of Take Care are as carefully mapped as symphonies and equally as unpredictable. [May 2011, p. 77]

The rest, it must be said, is extremely dull. [May 2011, p.108]

The six tracks on Take care... are beautifully realised mini-symphonies that invite comparisons with a leaner Godspeed You! Black Emperor, all defined by epic, awe-inspiring crescendos. [May 2011, p.115]

It's familiar but refreshing, evidence that a dinosaur genre like "post-rock" can still sound vital.

If [only] these epic songs glowed hotter along the way. [6 May 2011, p.74]

Follow-up Take Care, Take Care, Take Care largely forgoes the wide-screen expanse of the band's Friday Night Lights film soundtrack (2004) if favor of a more insular experience, casting intrigue in the minute details.

Take Care isn't without one or two missteps: the rapid-fire drums and nondescript chanting that open Trembling Hands come off a little too much like a cheap Arcade Fire pastiche, while the overlong closing track Let Me Back In is something of an anti-climax.

Building levees of emotion and tearing those bitches down - Explosions in the Sky have never sounded more thrilling.

Unless EITS takes a few deeper cues from the post-rock tradition and starts tinkering with itself, Take Care will stand as another one of the band's increasingly redundant aural screensavers. That said, at least it's a pretty one.

Take Care, Take Care, Take Care is another beautiful record from the band, and another fresh track laid on their sonic landscape, a slight tangent from their other records that never loses their overall direction.

On the inauspiciously titled Take Care, Take Care, Take Care, the band's sixth album, it's focused inward and enriched its traditional dynamic ebb and flow with some artful embroidery.

While this may not make it the most immediately exciting album of Explosions in the Sky's career, it easily stands to be one of their most rewarding.

Send Take Care on a spin and let its grandeur make you feel like a movie star for an hour or so.

This instrumental quartet from Austin specialize in a highly disciplined enchantment: echo-laden orchestral-guitar rock as specific as Bach in its circling concentric melodies and as steadfast as AC/DC in its push to ecstasy.

Take Care is less ragged than Those Who Tell the Truth Shall Die, but it's otherwise a very similar album.

Any questions as to whether they or their sense of artistry have had too long to coalesce are promptly answered and put completely to rest by album's end, as they prove just as able as ever to build tension to stunning emotional heights and bring it all crashing down in spectacular displays of cathartic release.

Explosions In The Sky continue to tap into this special vector of imagination, emotion, and possibility, making everything that much more vivid.

Besides the odd burst of surf guitar and filigree finger-picking, the basic musical parameters remain unchanged. [May 2011, p.85]

Take Care, take Care, Take Care is their most lush offering to date, with the layers of instrumentation blurring together so sublimely, it's hard to discern what instrument might be making such a wondrous sound. [May 2011, p.92]

In the end, the Texas band can't help but eventually indulge their desire to produce epic, guitar-driven film-score material, and after some initial feints into other territory, Take Care is business as usual.

Undeniably formulaic but just as captivatingly beautiful, solemn closer Let Me Back In is the track-stopping highlight, painstakingly building to a crescendo before the ghost voices drift out. Glorious.

It's just one eye-opening surge of splendour, like the first gasp of a newborn baby taking in the world for the very first time. The difference with this album: that sense of wonder never fades.

With subtle sonic shifts (such as chanting on the almost-poppy "Trembling Hands"), the songs are reliably dynamic, turning hushed beats and lightly scratched guitar into overwhelming drama.

Take Care, Take Care, Take Care is the auditory equivalent of a strawberry ice-cream on a sunny day and, however many times you might have tasted one before, it still counts as a treat.

This isn't showing off with noise like post-rock can sometimes be accused of; it is, rather, intricate knowledge of how a leaderless band uses its flexibility to craft rises and falls that consume and envelop, making it an essential addition to anyone's list of 2011 records to own.

Texans Explosions In The Sky have not only stuck faithfully to their roots, they've made the defining album of their career.

This is obviously a band that, on some level, is trying to switch things up. But for next time, instead of testing the water, Explosions need to take the plunge.