Music Banter - Trollheart tries to save all the albums Ki likes that Batty want to **** on

OK Batty, it's you verus me, Batlord v Trollheart, the fight of the, um, evening.
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The Wilderness – Explosions in the Sky – 2016

As I said, I'm not that into post-rock, though in fairness it's not that I'm not necessarily into listening to it, I just find it difficult to review. Properly, Batty, properly, not just stringing a pile of variations on “****-this-is-boring” together. This is Explosions in the Sky's seventh album. Apparently. Let's see what it's like, using the tried-and-trusted “Love or Hate?” style review system.

1. Wilderness: Initially it sounds like Genesis on Duke, very low-key and kind of bubbly keyboards I guess. Picks up a little then but generally I would agree with Batty that it's lacking in something. Quite boring actually. One down.
2. The Ecstatics: Now it sort of sounds like those cartoon mice or cats stalking something, you know the kind of sound effect. Again it picks up a little but again there's kind of not much in it. Rocket up the arse needed, stat!
3. Tangle formations: Alright, thirty-odd seconds before I even realised the track had started. It's getting going now though, and while it's not the rocket up the hole that this album requires, it is a gentle slap upside the head. So that's something. There's a bit of a pattern developing though: just as it seems they're about to fire off on all cylinders they tone it right back, and the effect is broken. It's just meandering a little now as it approaches the third minute. Still not seeing very much to write anything about.
4. Logic of a dream: Something like a low organ or the like, with a bit of guitar, but again it's so quiet it's almost like it's not there for about a minute. Breaks out then into a very Vangeliseque sweeping riff, quite spacey and sort of feedback-y in its way. Rolling percussion now adding something, and maybe this track will hook my interest, as really, nothing else so far has. Going into a kind of rolling march now, with some echoey effects, but I find it a little contrived. Sounds like voices in the background but I bet they're just effects made on the guitar or synth. At six and a half minutes I have to say this song is way too long, stretching out ideas that really aren't substantial enough to be stretched. It's still probably the best of the tracks I've heard yet though. Some nice catchy riffing there, but instead of expanding on that they've changed it, and now they're back to it, so maybe there's hope. No, there isn't. Silly me.
5. Disintegration anxiety: Now this I don't like at all. It's like some sort of squealy keyboard riffing although now there's a rather nice acoustic guitar, which just became or was joined by electric and the percussion took it up a notch. Maybe half a notch. Yeah, kind of went nowhere again. :(
6. Losing the light: Another almost inaudible start (getting to be a habit now; you can nearly predict it) – might be loops. Goes on for well over a minute anyway, now there's something like a sonar and then the first guitar chords (assuming that what went before was not guitar and I just didn't recognise it, which is entirely possible) at around the two minute mark. Not doing very much though. Okay, now some decent piano which sort of reminds me of Momentary Lapse-era Floyd, except they used it a whole lot better. This, again, goes nowhere. Boring.
7. Infinite orbit: I'm afraid I'm kind of with Batty on this one: the idea of a short song after these many tracks of over five or six minutes doing basically nothing is something of a mercy. Unfortunately, it seems to consist of someone bashing dustbin lids (remember them, kids?) and a bit of piano, guitar peeking in but not much else. At least, as we both agree, it's short. But God is it awful. Just stultifyingly boring. Next!
8. Colors in space: These last two tracks are long so I hope they do something decent with them. This one is the longest, just over seven minutes, but it's a little worrying to find it opening on dismal church organ with hissing sound effects like in some sort of machine. A minute in and not much has happened. Have I already said that? Well, that's because it's happened before. Often, in fact. We're nearly two minutes in now and still it's pretty low-key. Maybe that's how their music is. Fair enough if so, but it's not very stimulating. I'd much prefer Day Dream Society. Four minutes left. Wonder what they'll do with it? Okay, some relatively fast percussion is kicking in now, but the problem is that the rest of the instrumentation is largely remaining at the same pace, so it's not as if the song has really sped up at all. Still, it's a little more interesting, but only a little. I see one of the critics who reviewed this called it “dynamic”. All I can say is he must have a different definition of dynamic to me.
9. Landing cliffs: And once more a slow, boring intro which may or may not build up to anything interesting. I'm thinking the latter, going on what I've heard so far. Nice enough keys coming in now, sounds vaguely celestial. Not an adjective I'd be considering applying to the rest of this music though. Soaring sounds like choral vocals now, and – bloody Hell! We're already almost halfway through the piece and nothing of note has happened. How totally expected at this stage is that? Some nice sort of strummed guitar I think, quite a relaxing feel to this, though again Yorke does it better by far. Fourth minute and here comes the percussion – what type of percussion, can anyone guess? Yeah: gentle. Everything about this album is gentle and relaxed, which is fine, nothing against that. But not on every track. There needs to be something happening, something to get the blood pumping and the braincells firing, and for me, this never gets going. Pretty much a nine-track borefest.

Sorry Ki, have to admit old Batty called it with this one. Although I've tried to be a little more descriptive in my review and not used so many asterisks, I can see why he was bored to tears with it. Definitely not my thing, and if you like this, then I can see now why you rated The Endless River so highly.

Batty's verdict: Boring and pointless (in so many words)
Trollheart's verdict: A big far Meh all round.