Right now it’d be nice to get a sort of gentle lull in, to shake off the remnants of Friday’s hangover and help ease the crowd in for tonight’s homecoming of sorts, which is exactly what God Is An Astronaut deliver. Well, to begin with anyway. Having spent a lot of this year so far in the United States, where they unfortunately had some very expensive equipment stolen from them, it’s warming that there’s such a turnout, with people no doubt eager to hear how the new material sounds after being so heavily road tested.

When they last played Dublin, at the beginning of the year, GIAA had things down perfectly; yet somehow they’ve managed to trump their previously high standards. When ‘All Is Violent, All Is Bright’ gets rolled out we get a big rock-out section at the end. Yes, those parts have been there on record, but never with such force. It seems that the time away has hardened GIAA, and tonight there’s definitely something in the air, as if the three boys have tapped into and are channelling that negative energy, using it to highlight new shade in the songs. This is especially evident in bassist Niels Kinsella’s playing, his instrument more fuzzed-up and direct than previously, while there’s also a nice bit of wah-wah abuse from Torsten.

They haven’t lost touch with the subtler elements of their sound either. It’s still possible to be reduced to tears while dancing away contentedly with your eyes closed feeling the gentle, slowly building sounds creep around and gently move you, such as during ‘Far From Refuge’ or an exceptionally moving ‘Fragile’. So whereas the likes of Pelican are more focused on terrestrial movements and sound like landmasses colliding, God Is An Astronaut (as the name suggests) are more captivated by all things stratospheric. By more spacey swirls, with an ability to make you feel both full of joy and sorrow at the same time, the visuals as always apt and reinforcing this with their images of rockets, astronauts (both man and ape) and the sun drifting slowly across the horizon.

It’s going to be interesting to see where God Is An Astronaut take us next, but for tonight it’s enough to just float here (or get the bus home, as the case may be).

Photo: Kelda Minjon