I didn’t think this album belonged on this list till yesterday, when I was driving to the airport and put it on, at which point I realized a couple of things. 1) “The Only Moment We Were Alone” might be my favorite song of all time. 2) When I get a new album I really love, I frequently kill it over a period of 2-3 weeks – I’ll think about listening to something, anything else, but just can’t see the point. With The Earth is Not a Cold Dead Place, I realized that I’ve been sort of portioning it out to myself over a period of years, so as to not blunt its impact. I’ve never overlistened to it, and it’s been intentional – I play it once every three or four months, and then I put it away again.

The odd thing about this is that I’m not a huge fan of either instrumental music or post-rock in general. Middle-period Mogwai is ok (Rock Action and Happy Songs for Happy People, most notably), but generally I need slightly shorter running times and/or more hooks per capita than long-form instrumental rock music generally bestows. And even within the catalog of Explosions in the Sky, this record is the only one that really does it for me – the first one is ok, the second one a little better, the most recent one less so… but man. This record.

And why? Well, the title is informally a little longer than it first appears, and that’s sort of the key to what I love about it. I own it on vinyl, and on the otherwise blank fourth side is etched several doves and the inscription: “The earth is not a cold dead place because you are listening because you are breathing.” Instrumental rock of this stripe is good at grandeur and pomp, but less often at resolution and satisfaction. This record is unique for me in that it sounds like life. And hope. And love. If I’m going to apply adjectives to it, they’re less about the sounds and more about the feelings the sounds evoke: it’s hopeful and disconcerting and depressing and uplifting. It’s EITS trying to package the amazing experience of being alive into rock music, and getting pretty damn close to doing it.