God Is An Astronaut
God Is An Astronaut

It is the dreamy atmosphere of their native land, Ireland, that is reflected in their sonorous spirals of piercing delicacy. Guitar engravings inlaid within a rarefied atmosphere where the drum beats and the bass rhythm are like the vital song of the sea, which from every part laps that green land, Ireland.

The first three cries of the band, "The end of the beginning", "All is violent, all is bright", and "Far from refuge", had somehow already described and expanded the ethereal, soft, and more properly rock sounds that make up the music of the Irish trio. In particular, the musical atmospheres of "All is violent, all is bright" hit the mark, leaving behind one of the most dreamy and melancholically alive albums of recent years.

Thus, just a year after the debated and debatable "Far from refuge", the three Irishmen (Torsten and Niels Kinsella and Lloyd Hanney) return to the studio to shape the fourth chapter of a discography destined to grow: "God is an astronaut" is born in 2008. The choice of the title, the same as the band's monicker, reinforces the idea that the group's music is of their own making, without improbable parallels. Indeed, this band's post rock does not find too direct a point of contact with other contemporary groups but stands as a small island of musical fertility within a landscape saturated with similar proposals.

Lost in their hallucinogenic world, the three members of the band return with this album to describe in music the gray emotions they perceive from the world. Already, the cover shows us a solitary individual lost in flames, in a dark world populated by shadows and ancestral fears that find their highest sublimation in "Shadows", a delicate opener experienced in balance between an electronic beginning and the continuation of a hiccuping guitar. The same man from the cover hears and perceives (as does the listener) the calls of his mind, distant echoes that the track "Echoes" shows us with redundant and mellifluous power, creating another dimension. In this continuum of diaphanous feelings, ready to disappear at any moment, certainties also vanish. Everything disappears a bit in the overwhelming distortion of "Snowfall", and everything reappears as if by magic in "The first day of sun".

The "river music" of God is an astronaut, which pours continuously without vocals, in that succession of sound movements always ready to fit wonderfully together, finds an oasis of peace in the five minutes of "Remaining light", a sweet melody of piano and distant calls that break the flow of the album. A full-length that closes in the best way with the journey of a lifetime: "Loss" made me think of all the homeless who live without hope on our streets, men adrift in a world on fire, men completely at the mercy of their fate, just like the man on the cover, abandoned to himself...

The fourth album by the Irish band is not a work that can be recommended to everyone: those who do not love instrumental music can easily steer clear, while for all those who love atmospheric and dreamy sounds, never banal and never too complex, the eponymous album of the band is probably the one that from this point of view satisfies the listener the most, who in turn will want several times, again, to embark on this journey. In search of man, himself, and everything...

1. "Shadows" (5:11)
2. "Post Mortem" (5:52)
3. "Echoes" (5:10)
4. "Snowfall" (6:41)
5. "First Day Of Sun" (3:37)
6. "No Return" (7:04)
7. "Zodiac" (5:41)
8. "Remaining Light" (5:30)
9. "Shores Of Orion" (5:15)
10. "Loss" (10:51)