This Will Destroy You : Tunnel Blanket

This Will Destroy You released Tunnel Blanket on Suicide Squeeze Records on May 10th 2011. They are currently on a North American tour with Pure X and Sleep∞Over and will be at the Media Club on May 22nd. Watch their live performance of "Little Smoke" at the IFC House during SXSW and then get to the show. 


Tunnel Blanket is an hour long, eight song epic. The Texas four piece This Will Destroy You is an instrumental, cinematic, rock band right up there with Explosions in the Sky (sorry guys, as flattering as it is, I'm sure you're sick of that comparison by now). With only one song coming in under three minutes, TWDY are masters of dynamics and tension. At times you can hear only the distant hum of a sustained note. Slowly it builds. A pattern emerges, wait, no... it's drums. Still building the note that started this is now just a small part of a chord... you can pick out more harmonics now and yet... it's still building... the chord is no longer artificially sustained but now it's manually sustained with tremolo guitar picking... the cymbals are crashing and the kick drum is pounding...  guitars, feeding back...they have done it. How long has it been? How stoned am I? Welcome to TWDY. In the realm of the more familiar, a personal favourite is "Killed the Lord, Left for the New World" (a track I nearly mistook for, the excellent band,  The Books) is amazing.


Tunnel Blanket is a very solid post-rock album. Seeing this live is going to be awesome.


On a bummer note: Late last week, This Will Destroy You’s van and gear inside were stolen right off the street in San Antonio, TX. While the band was devastated that this not only happened, they was particularly devastated with the timing -- right before their tour and Daytrotter Session recording, which had to be postponed.