Explosions in the Sky – End
September 8, 2023
“It never fails to amaze me the power of music when love is at its core. It is the reason we get out of bed
every morning. To hope that we can continue to show that beauty is still around and in all of us. Thank
you for doing what you do and helping us through this life.”
– Simon Raymonde (Cocteau Twins), in a message sent to Explosions in the Sky after hearing End, the
band’s first album in seven years
End, the enigmatic seventh album by Explosions in the Sky, was inspired by darkness, but became a
loud, dramatic, wild rumination on life and death.
“Our starting point was the concept of an ending—death, or the end of a friendship or
relationship. Every song comes from a story, or an idea one of us has had that we’ve all
expanded on and made its own world. Maybe it’s our nature, but we kept feeling that the album
title was ultimately open to a lot more interpretation—the end of a thing or a time can mean a
stop, but it can also mean a beginning, and what happens after one thing ends might pale in
comparison to what it becomes next,” says the band about the album.
End is perhaps the “grandest” Explosions in the Sky album – melding the quiet restraint and
crushing feel of their early releases with the sonic texturing and ornate experimentation of their later
releases, and their increasingly deep film and television scoring catalog, influenced by personal
tastes stretching from classical to soul to experimental ambient music.
The title “End” furthers a story arc reflected in the album titles that started with the “innocence”
of their first album (How Strange, Innocence), progressed through the idealism and
romanticism of their second and third albums (Those Who Tell the Truth Shall Die, Those Who
Tell the Truth Shall Live Forever and The Earth is Not a Cold Dead Place), followed by the
introspection (All of a Sudden I Miss Everyone and Take Care Take Care Take Care) and
big-picture focus (The Wilderness) of their most recent albums.
The band announced “The End Tour” this spring, bringing their legendary live show experience to 26
cities around the world in 2023. More dates are expected to be announced soon.
They are currently scoring a new, undisclosed, television series that will premiere in 2024.
End is the band’s seventh, but not final, studio album.
Explosions in the Sky – End
September 8, 2023
About Explosions in the Sky
Explosions in the Sky are an iconic instrumental rock band from Texas that have become the gold
standard for bold, emotional, cinematic music and are known for their incendiary live concerts.
They’ve slowly grown from playing DIY spaces and opening for Fugazi to having headlined Radio
City Music Hall, Royal Albert Hall, the Greek Theatre, and the Sydney Opera House.
Over 24 years of being a band (with the same four members the entire time), they’ve achieved
remarkable commercial success from an especially non-commercial corner of the music world,
selling more than 1.3 million copies over six studio albums, and scoring five major motion pictures in
the process. They’ve become the sound of modern sports films, documentaries and television, due
largely to their genre-defining Friday Night Lights score, and they’ve been asked to tour with artist
fans as diverse as Nine Inch Nails, Smashing Pumpkins, The Flaming Lips, and Death Cab for
Cutie, while managing to not sound like any other popular artist.
End Credits
Written and performed by Christopher Hrasky, Michael James, Mark T. Smith, and Munaf Rayani
Produced by John Congleton and Explosions In The Sky
Recorded at Sonic Ranch in Tornillo, Texas
Engineered and mixed by John Congleton
Assistant engineers: Gerardo “Jerry” Ordonez and Diego Mendoza
Mastered by Bernie Grundman
Artwork by Pat Perry
Design by Ben Dickey
Explosions in the Sky – Studio Albums
– How Strange, Innocence (2000)
– Those Who Tell the Truth Shall Die, Those Who Tell the Truth Shall Live Forever (2001)
– The Earth is Not a Cold Dead Place (2003)
– All of a Sudden I Miss Everyone (2007)
– Take Care Take Care Take Care (2011)
– The Wilderness (2016)
Explosions in the Sky – Film Scores
– Friday Night Lights (2004)
– Lone Survivor (2013)
– Prince Avalanche (2013)
– Manglehorn (2014)
– Big Bend (2022