Explosions in the Sky - "All of a Sudden I Miss Everyone" (Temporary Residence Ltd.)

If you want to truly appreciate “All of a Sudden I Miss Everyone,” the new album from Explosions in the Sky, you should probably hasten to your nearest neighborhood drug dealer and ask him for as much marijuana as you can afford.

That is not to say that the new release from the Texas-based instrumental band—perhaps best known for their controversial Sept. 11 related album cover and their creation of soundtracks for the film and TV series “Friday Night Lights”—is not good on its own. But it certainly lends itself toward psychotropic enhancement.

“All of a Sudden I Miss Everyone” is replete with the musical ups and downs that characterize much of the band’s previous work. The songs are long, and seem to develop sporadically and as if without direction. The third track on the six-song album, entitled “It’s Natural to be Afraid,” is a particularly good example of this. Beginning with eerie resonant background noises, the song gradually builds throughout its 13 minutes into a sound that’s reminiscent of their “Friday Night Lights” scoring.

Explosions in the Sky make entirely instrumental music, and tend to favor simple instruments; guitars and a drum set are their stock-in-trade. In this album, however, the drums are featured more heavily, as are the keyboards. The CD rocks more than their previous offerings, featuring heavy distortion right from the first song, “The Birth and Death of Day.”

The final track on the album, “So Long, Lonesome,” ties the work together nicely, incorporating musical motifs that appeared in previous songs, and bringing closure to the work as a whole.

The music is mostly simple, without being boring or formulaic. Explosions in the Sky ventures into some new ground, particularly with their new, heavier sounds, but their work is somehow wholly familiar. Melody and harmony interact nicely, sometimes contrasting (“It’s Natural to be Afraid”) and sometimes blending (“Catastrophe and Cure”). The tone runs the gamut from dense and discordant to light and uncomplicated, changing even as the songs progress.

Like the rest of Explosions in the Sky’s work, “All of a Sudden I Miss Everyone” is experimental, and thus does not appeal to all audiences. You won’t find yourself humming it, nor will it provide any hooks that inevitably get stuck in your head for days. The album’s transitions are so fluid that songs seem to bleed into one another, and you find yourself wondering where one song began and the other ended. If, however, you enjoy good music that may not be particularly mainstream, than this record’s for you.

“All of a Sudden I Miss Everyone” is a great album to relax to, and transports the listener into a much less complicated world of tranquil musicality. It will also be released in two-disc format, with the latter disc providing remixes of the songs by a number of semi-famous artists, such as Jesu and Paper Chase.

Having not heard the remix disc, I can’t say whether it will promote the same sense of psychedelic euphoria when combined with illegal substances. But the un-remixed album will make your toes curl up with delight. Even if you’re not partial to trance-like bliss, recommend the album to your stoned-out friends or put it on to unwind, you poor, stressed-out student.

—Reviewer Joshua J. Kearney can be reached at kearney@fas.harvard.edu.