Red Sparowes is an LA-based instrumental group - consisting of members of Isis, Halifax Pier, Pleasure Forever, Angel Hair and The VSS - known for its epic, heavy and sprawling sounds.Their third album, 'The Fear Is Excruciating, But Therein Lies The Answer', recorded by engineer Toshi Kasai (Melvins, Big Business, Tool), finds a spectacular balance of heft and melody.Not metal, not post-rock, with a master's sense of nuance and an artist's unhindered expressionism, the grandiose scope of Red Sparowes' lush vignettes and haunting and hallucinatory guitar orchestrations conjures comparisons to symphonic cinema pieces. The album maintains their layered arrangements and swirling amplified crescendos, Americana noir soundscapes (punctuated by extended pedal steel), and gloriously triumphant melodies. And where previous endeavours found the band propelled by enormous walls of sound, they now temper their monolithic progressions with distinct passages of separated and soft-spoken instrumentation.