Explosions in the Inbox

Have you seen the movie “Friday Night Lights”? Wait - not the recent television adaptation, but the actual movie with Billy Bob Thornton? It came out a few years ago. Got it? Ok.

One of the standout elements of the film was the score. It was written and recorded by Explosions in the Sky -- a four-piece post-rock (vocal-less) band from the same West Texas area that the film was set in. They haven’t released a proper full length since 2003’s opus, “The Earth is Not a Cold Dead Place”. Their epic new album, All of a Sudden I Miss Everyone, came out yesterday (which I highly recommend picking up). And to promote the album’s release, they sent out a newsletter.

It arrived in my inbox at 10:35 AM. It was a simple, yet effectively designed newsletter for a band. It had a column on the right with a link to buy the new album, along with their upcoming tour dates. Plenty of links to their website… even a refer-a-friend link. Nothing too flashy. Just the facts. The only problem was a broken image – which was intended to render their new album’s cover art.



Then, exactly three hours later (1:35 PM), I received the same email again. Only this time, it seemed as if the email had exploded (pun intended) in my inbox. It had no subject line, and the copy in the “Latest News” section had vanished. Oh… and the cover art image was still broken.



Their emails are developed and managed by a company called Altamont Design Studios. Altamont serves such diverse artists as Rev Run, Shooter Jennings and Hatebreed, along with EITS’s management company, Constant Artists.

Now I know I may have come off sounding a little irritated about all of this, but it’s for a good reason. Explosions in the Sky are one of my favorite bands. They’re the only band I’ve ever dropped hundreds of dollars on plane tickets to see. It’s frustrating to see the people working for them drop the ball, especially in such a careless fashion. In the future, I hope their management company communicates better with Altamont to keep their email sends as tight as the band’s live set.


Explosions in the Sky
Altamont Design Studios
Constant Artists