American post-rock band Explosions in the Sky’s 2007 album All of a Sudden I Miss Everyone is a profound instrumental journey through isolation and disaster that the beautiful cover art helps bring to life. Each song unfolds like a wordless, dynamic narrative that the image builds on, creating a more complete visual and sonic experience. The subtle beauty of a song like, It’s Natural to Be Afraid sucks the listener in and makes one wish they were out at sea looking up at a moonlit city like the cover depicts. I believe the album art represents mankind’s resilience and ability to rebuild when all is destroyed, as well as provide a glimpse into mankind’s bleak future if we continue mindlessly polluting our atmosphere.

Post-rock albums typically make use of simple covers to reflect the minimalistic tone of the music, but Explosions in the Sky creates vast symbolic landscapes with their covers to help develop more dynamic and creative pictures in their listeners’ minds. Famous post-rock albums such as, Godspeed You Black Emperor’s F♯ A♯ ∞ from 1997, Lift Yr. Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven from 2000, and Sigur Rós’ Ágætis byrjun from 1999 are effective with their minimalistic style, but they ultimately don’t do more than provide an intriguing, vague image that the listener will merely glance at and not take seriously as a piece of art. This is not the case here as the beautiful mass of water on the cover accompanied by the music makes my mind conjure up radiant waves crashing and calming down. The music of All of a Sudden I Miss Everyone achieves a vast feeling by being very somber and quaint, yet explosive and unpredictable with some of the most emotional drumming I’ve ever heard. The faint glow of the moon shining down on the flooded city is unsettling and looks almost as though God’s eye is watching over.

The cover shows a man on a boat with a lantern who seems to have rescued an angel, reminding one of the Noah’s Ark story and how one man has the potential for the rejuvenation of all life on Earth. I suggested he might have saved an angel since the creature resembles the angel on the cover of their sophomore album, Those Who Tell the Truth Shall Die, Those Who Tell the Truth Shall Live Forever from 2001. The song Catastrophe and the Cure is very hopeful and mentions a way forward after the disaster. The man seems to be searching for something in the water, maybe he’s looking for other survivors or trying to find his whereabouts, or maybe he is just holding the lantern toward the rising moon, admiring the silent beauty of the night sky as he knows his and his loved ones’ lives are being reset by the uncaring waters. Any way one interprets the image, the music will follow suit as the searing guitars and pummeling drums form a hurricane of sorrowful sound that the listener is alone in the middle of.

American visual artist and designer Esteban Ray created the cover and his signature style of distorted perspective and cool color blending helps to create a one-of-a-kind dystopian portrait of this musical experience. He obviously took inspiration from Vincent Van Gogh’s famous oil painting, Starry Night from 1889, but Ray is more focused on showing us the unstoppable forces of nature here on Earth rather than the ones far above us. The surging drums near the end of the Birth and Death of Day sound a lot like factory machinery and there is also a noticeable factory in the background of the cover. A giant facility that likely polluted the environment and contributed to climate change by releasing greenhouse gasses like carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and other various fluorinated gasses into the atmosphere. The factory being the only thing still standing upright may have a symbolic purpose like showing the resilience of mankind’s big, grey, cold constructions or the image may be more ironic, showing how nature destroyed almost everything except the factory that contributed to accelerating global warming.

To the contrary, some might say that art is always subjective and just because I look at and listen to a piece of art and feel something by relating it to my own life, doesn’t mean everyone else will connect to that artwork in the same way. No two people have the exact same experiences, so we all view the world differently. I look at the cover and see a beautiful yet haunting depiction of nature in a bleak, dystopian future, whereas others might see a dreamlike voyage through an ethereal sea or just an ugly Vincent Van Gogh knockoff. Many believe the beauty of art lies in the multiplicity of interpretations and the ability for unique resonance with each person who experiences it.

Others might point out that the cover imposes a restrictive narrative on the listener, limiting the music’s interpretability. What would otherwise be a vague and slightly abstract musical composition is instead turned into a straightforward story of one boatman’s struggle against the brooding waters that doesn’t fully align the album’s scope. While I agree ambiguity can be useful when trying to make a piece of art relatable to more people, we should consider that this is a creative project with a deliberate story that needs a narrative anchor to provide the listener with a starting image for the music expand and complete in their minds. The cover doesn’t dictate each note’s meaning but merely serves as a gripping entry point into the album’s world.

In conclusion, the cover art for Explosions in the Sky’s All of a Sudden I Miss Everyone is a masterpiece in of itself and should be appreciated as a necessary supplement to the music. This band crafts much more detailed art pieces for their records than other post-rock bands, which makes them stand out and adds an additional element to their music that the others don’t have. Their album covers, and this one in particular, can be interpreted in many ways despite being so detailed and specific. I think the cover is a spiritual metaphor and a warning, but however you understand the work, the music will align with your interpretation. The album art also takes influence from Vincent Van Gogh, but is different enough to not be considered plagiarism since it has an entirely different meaning and features entirely different subjects. I hope I’ve convinced whoever is reading to examine this piece of haunting eye candy and determine for themselves if the artwork enhances their experience with the album because I’m sure it will.