God Is An Astronaut

In the striking setting of the Eur Social Park, Irish outfit God Is An Astronaut return to Rome just a few months after their last indoor show at Largo Venue. The trio prove once again to be in excellent form, delivering a thoroughly enjoyable hour and a half of electric outbursts and melodic bursts of intimate power.

The show opens with the melancholic arpeggios of "Falling Leaves", the first live outing from the latest album "Embers", released two years ago now on Napalm Records. Next up is "Epitaph", which raises the stakes with its balance between dark post-rock and elephantine metal. The recovery of times past can be felt in the Nordic atmospheres of "All Is Violent, All Is Bright", which unfolds seductively into an obsessive, tribal coda, driven by the superb drumming of recent addition Anxo Silveria.
The set travels from the initial melodic calm of "Apparition" to the industrial textures of the relentless "Seance Room". The sonic universe painted live by God Is An Astronaut is a crossroads of styles and moods, united by an emotional rise and fall, as in the following "Odyssey", which starts almost like an Irish acoustic jig before unleashing itself in a dark, goosebump-inducing guitar whirlwind.

The Irish band's songs are essentially cosmogonic mini-suites, at times more strictly post-rock ("Suicide By Star" and "Frozen Twilight"), at others suddenly veering into a sophisticated dark-metal ("Oscillation"). The undoubted high point of the show is the ten-plus-minute marathon "Embers", which leaves the crowd reeling between tribal rhythms and furious openings.
The trio is a flawless live machine, even when they announce there's no point leaving the stage only to come straight back for the inevitable encore. The chamber-like intro of "Forever Lost" takes the show to new emotional heights, before closing with the drone atmospheres of "From Dust To The Beyond".
We step out under the trees of Rome, satisfied by an honest, direct show with an exquisite flavour.

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