Red Sparowes' latest offering, The Fear is Excruciating, But Therein Lies the Answer, began with the larger existential pondering of truth, faith, order, causality, and the innate demand for an understanding of the larger world around us. While Red Sparowes? majesty is hardly in need of story, the provision of the larger metaphor yields a heightened depth and gravity to their work. There has never been as pronounced of a leap in style and scope as with Red Sparowes' third full length. The Fear is Excruciating, But Therein Lies the Answer maintains their layered arrangements and swirling amplified crescendos, Americana noir soundscapes (punctuated by the extended pedal steel on ?In Every Mind?), and gloriously triumphant melodies (?Giving Birth to Imagined Saviors?). Earlier records focused on the larger scope of the album, but the new album is song-centered, with the individual tracks harboring stronger independent identities. And where previous endeavors found the band propelled by enormous walls of sound, they now temper their monolithic progressions with distinct passages of separated and soft-spoken instrumentation. Red Sparowes were suspiciously absent from the playing field over the last three years, and now it?s apparent that they were busy drafting the grandest statement and finest achievement of their existence.