Wednesday, November 5, 2008

New God is an Astronaut! Plus Additional Hyping


I've spoken before in this space about the awesomeness that is God is an Astronaut. They're a fantastic group that has carved out a niche for themselves, moulding layers of obfuscating electronic haze into breath-taking post-rock brilliance.

Anyway, they have a new album coming out on the 7th, the self-titled God is an Astronaut, which is currently streaming about half of its tracks on their myspace page (it has also apparently leaked, so you can probably find it if you're intrepid enough). You'll also be able to purchase it from their website once it officially releases. I encourage you to check it out.

And while I'm at it, I may as well throw out a recommendation for what is currently my favourite post-rock outing of the year, Up-C Down-C Left-C Right-C ABC + Start's Embers. Simply put, it's one of the best albums of the year, and an excellent example of taking a tried-and-true formula (in this case, the type of 'crescendo-core' [I feel dirty just writing that] derivative from Explosions in the Sky) and making it your own. If you want, you can order it from their website, or you can just wait until the end of the year, at which point I will likely pimp it into oblivion.

3 comments:

gabbagabbahey said...

hadn't a clue this was coming out this week. sounds very good on their Myspace.

hopefully this might be in record shops in Dublin tomorrow, but I'll probably do some 'intrepid' digging before then.

and I kinda like the term 'crescendo-core'; there's a need for it, or a term similar to it at least, to describe that particular part of 'post-rock', a way over-extended genre term.

cretin said...

myspace songs definitely sound great, and have left me quite pumped up for the release. sounds like it'll be better than the somewhat disappointing (for me anyway) Far From Refuge anyway.

as for the utmostly important topic of genres, i agree that further terminology is needed when discussing the polyphyletic clusterfuck that is 'post-rock', but crescendo-core? core? core insinuates that the genre in question has branched off from hard"core", and not just that the word core is in of itself prima facie super wickyd cool. i mean, would you call a mammal a mammalosaur just cuz it sounds cool NO I THINK THAT YOU WOULD NOT AS THE SUFFIX "-SAUR" HAS CONNOTATIONS THAT ARE UNRELATED TO THE FAMILY MAMMALIA.

my taxonomic views are strict and unyielding. phylogenies must be given careful consideration; otherwise: Anarchy!

cretin said...

er, "class". "class mammalia".

YOU SEE? ANARCHY!