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The Irish band reaches their seventh studio album and returns after the controversial "Origins," a not entirely successful attempt to broaden horizons and sounds in an effort to fuse the band's style, until then well-codified on a classic guitar-driven post rock with various openings to metal-influenced riffs.
The god astronaut rewinds the tape and returns to pre-"Origins" works, particularly "Age of the Fifth Sun." Attempts at innovation set aside, as well as the exploration of sounds in studio work: the new GIAA album is a sweet return to the past. A formula more chewed over, sounds essentially already heard, sonic constructions that add nothing to their career, but at least they return to flying towards uncharted worlds with 45 minutes of pure classic post rock. The dark intro of "Agneya" that suddenly mellows, the rocky riffs closing "Vetus Memoria", the "progressive post rock" of intersections and changes in "Helios Erebus", the ambient touches in "Obscura Somnia" (the most "Origins" style track), the return to metal bursts in "Centralia". "Helios/Erebus" contains several interesting moments, where the quality rises to deliver to the listener fragments of post rock that still manages to evoke some emotion.
The latest creation from the Irish band is the classic "come back" to their sonic origins. The group has abandoned experimentation (which was barely successful) and has returned to the formula that made them famous to an ever-growing group of supporters. The sound is the same as always, overused and much overused in the vast world of post-rock, but at least it lets the mind travel a bit and returns to dreaming with those atmospheres that God Is An Astronaut originally introduced us to with past works.
Three and a half stars.
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