My Education: Bad Vibrations

Somewhere between the dense fog of tension-and-release post-rock dirge of Scotland’s Mogwai and the volcanic beauty of their fellow Texas instru-metalists Explosions in the Sky exists the music of Austin’s My Education. Only unlike those other bands, as dubiously displayed on the group’s latest, Bad Vibrations, these guys aren’t as interested inasmuch about the money shot as they are the build-up of their instrumental epics, sonically speaking, of course. And the fact that the viola is featured as prominently in their music as the guitars adds a semblance of Kronos Quartet-ian sophistication to even their most brutal arrangements, as the explosive eight-minute opener “This Old House” dully signifies.