This Will Destroy You
THIS WILL DESTROY YOU are an instrumental quartet from the great state of Texas who play a cascading brand of cinematic rock music. Often compared and linked to purveyors of the "post-rock" sub-genre, the band has managed to transcend the tag and carve its own niche via a delicate and balancing infusion of electronics, strings, and an array of unconventional "rock" instrumentation over bombastic and receding harmony.
The journey began in 2004-2005 as 4 friends (Raymond Brown, Chris King, Jeremy Galindo, and Andrew Miller) began refining and piecing together a collection of songs that would become known as "Young Mountain," originally intended as a demo to be sold at local shows. The recording immediately found its way onto the radar of Virginia's Magic Bullet Records, where the band instantly found a home and the demo quickly turned into one of 2006's biggest indie retail surprises.
In what felt like an overnight phenomenon, support from many different avenues began to pour in. Rock Sound editor Darren Taylor proclaimed "Young Mountain" his "2006 Album of the Year." Pitchfork recognized the potential and predicted even greater albums from the band in the coming years. The music began seeing placement across both independent and major film, video, and cable programming networks. Even the top secret walls within the Pentagon were subjected to the music of THIS WILL DESTROY YOU, their songs being part of a disaster preparedness presentation held before the nation's top military brass in the wake of New Orleans' catastrophic Hurricane Katrina.
2007 saw more of the same momentum, with the band getting their sea legs on the touring circuit, looping the U.S. before ever-amassing crowds of enthusiastic patrons excited to be finally witnessing "how those sounds are made" in person. They closed out the year by convening in a secluded house out on a private lake to pen what would become "S/T," the highly anticipated follow-up to their kinetic debut.
Recorded and produced by John "Larry" Congleton, "S/T" hit stores everywhere on January 29, 2008 and the band (with Donovan Jones replacing future M.D. Raymond Brown on bass) hit the road hard, once again putting thousands of miles under their tires domestically and embarking on a 6-week tour of Europe for the first time as a band. With no rest for the weary, THIS WILL DESTROY YOU came home for the first time in months and set to work on their half of "Field Studies," a split 10" with long-time friends and traveling companions LYMBYC SYSTYM, recorded in early July with Congleton once again behind the board.
The remainder of 2008 sees THIS WILL DESTROY YOU making history at the Olympic games in Beijing, as they will join labelmate AUGHRA in being the first western musical artists to have their music played on public Chinese airwaves (part of the Nike-commissioned documentary series "Basketball Disciples"). In September, the band and LYMBYC SYSTYM celebrate their split release with select dates in the U.S. (September) before THIS WILL DESTROY YOU jets over to their return engagement in Europe (October 2008).
