Early Day Miners

American music and American geography have always gone hand in hand. But while many bands can recall Southern attitude or New York cool, very few bands evoke the wistfulness of Midwest living the way Bloomington, Indiana's Early Day Miners do. Offshore, the band's fifth full-length, showcases the quintet's patient approach to post-rock, where chiming guitars, drawn-out vocals, and distant-freight-train drumming blend in a way that's ambient but still powerful. The result is "cinematic," although the members of Early Day Miners never pander to the drama-by-numbers clichés found on movie soundtracks or in Nissan commercials. Instead, Offshore is the perfect score to a long drive through desolate, cornfield-packed stretches of I-70.