There’s no doubt that Austin’s Explosions in the Sky play music that we in the rock-critical complex like to call “post-rock.” For starters, they do without the vocals (that tired rock-era relic), and though they aren’t free of a flair for memorable melodies, their music is defined not by compact hooks, but by long, dramatic crescendos and intricate, lengthy stretches of instrumental interplay. Yet perhaps more than any of the band’s post-rock peers, EITS conceive their stuff as a conduit for emotion with a capital E, which is the primary reason they’ve developed a healthy sideline as film-score composers; their soundtrack for 2004’s Friday Night Lights managed to make high-school football seem pretty epic. With Lichens and Ola Podidra.
Tue., April 8, 7 p.m., 2008