Explosions In The Sky came under a little bit of controversial heat after they released this record, so much so that the band actually received a few E-mail death threats and a couple of accusations of being terrorists. All of that is primarily because the album has some incredibly eerie "connections" with the terrorist attacks of September 11th, 2001. Here are those "connections":
- The album was released on September 10th, 2001.
- The front cover has a picture of an airplane emitting light onto an airborne angel on it. The airplane and angel are both flying over the heads of armed troops.
- On the inside there is a picture of the airplane again. Underneath it "this plane will crash tomorrow" is written.
- On the next panel of the inside artwork there is a picture of the angel. Under it "help us stay alive" is written.
- The record was recorded in Washington, D.C.
All of these instances were purely coincidental, of course. In fact, the artwork was completed by a friend of the bands months before it’s release. The artwork was made to depict the famous Angel Of Mons incident that happened during the First World War. During this incident both sides of the trenches stopped fighting for a short while as they watched what appeared to be an angel flying around in the sky. Many eyewitness accounts exist of this legend and people who lived through the battle swear that the angel was protecting them.
Another interesting story to tell about the band that also involves terrorism is one that happened on their way home from a short stay in Amsterdam. Before boarding the plane that would return them to the U.S. all of their equipment was searched through because the security team said that they had been warned about possible attacks on the flight. After a while of browsing through the bands stuff the band was questioned about many things, including the name of their band (they lied and said they were "In Search Of Peace") and what they were doing in Amsterdam.
The airport security finally told them about what was really holding them up: one of the guitars had the phrase "this plane will crash tomorrow" written on it. In an instant the panic the band brought out one of their CD and showed security the picture of the saying on their album, which completely cleared up everything and proved it wasn't some message to terroristic intent. They were very lucky, however, the airport security said that the plane almost didn’t take off because of it.
Sources:
http://flyroddg.com/eits/memorial.htm