God Is An Astronaut - Butterfly Explosion

After the great Friction Fest in Berlin I got a seconds right after out of the house of Viva Hate Records: GOD IS AN ASTRONAUT. Irish instrumentalists are on tour through Europe (and perfectly had suited the festival last weekend) and stopped at Zentrum Altenberg in Oberhausen, Germany. Seems like I cannot get enough from this kind of music these days ;) Must be the dark and rainy weather…

:: pics ::

Arriving on time we had to wait a bit since opening act :: JUNIUS :: was a bit late too. I’ve never heard of this band before and was quite curious. The devil takes the hindmost, JUNIUS had to play before the stage, thereon was no space left anymore. The Boston-based guys didn’t care and blow me away with their kind of music! What a wonderful discovery! Post Rock, Art Rock, Progressive, DarkWave? Difficult to describe, a bit of everything. But most haunting was the voice of singer/guitarist Joseph E. Martinez, he sounded somewhat like Robert Smith. JUNIUS rocked out heavily, but in a twinkling of an eye they also were able to fall into hauntingly beautiful, fragile and deeply melancholic parts. So mesmerizing! First song Stargazers & Gravediggers came from the current album The Martyrdom Of A Catastrophist (btw. an excellent record), the second one from a split with Juarez and the rest from the last EP Forcing Out The Silence. The last song I could not attach. Since the band was so close to audience we experienced an intensive show in an intimate atmosphere. Just great! Check them out!
Setlist: Stargazers & Gravediggers, The Time Of Perfect Virtue, Hiding Knives, Blood Is Bright, A Word Could Kill Her, Fires

Some short changeover with a huge wire mess, then :: THE BUTTERFLY EXPLOSION :: went on onto stage ;) Here I could clearly sense out Slowdive, who seemingly had a huge influence on these Irish gents. Music was way quieter and dreamier. THE BUTTERFLY EXPLOSION tour in support of their debut album Lost Trails. Nice, but I already got me highlight ;)

:: GOD IS AN ASTRONAUT :: have also a brand new album ready. It’s the band’s fifth album entitled Age Of The Fifth Sun and hits the store next days. Three musicians, three keyboards, next to bass, drums and guitar. Ok, means, a lot of soundcsapes were imported. Did not derogate the pleasure in any way. GOD IS AN ASTRONAUT played songs across the history, except for the band’s third album. They also had their own lightshow, but cannot say that it became and lighter now ;) However, crowd stood there with closed eyes and just enjoyed the epic sound collages. Pretty awesome. Very sublime atmosphere.
Setlist: Age Of The Fifth Sun, From Dust To The Beyond, Fragile, Echoes, In The Distance Fading, Worlds In Collision, Zodiac, Snowfall, Suicide By Star, Forever Lost, Route 666 // Fireflies & Empty Skies

The evening somehow passed by way too fast. All three bands were downright thankful for the enthusiastic response and had many talks afterwards with the fans. Too bad that they all neither had girlies nor longsleeves, only tees, I willingly would have spent some money otherwise ;)