god is an astronaut is god

i'm a greenhorn when it comes to writing about music. i listen to a reasonable quantam of music but know little about how to write about it. of all the elements of culture, writing about music is by far the trickiest.

generally, i've noticed that when people talk about a band, there'll always be a certain band representative of the genre against which the band in question will be measured, either directly or through implication.

talk about post-rock and sigur ros will be that representative band. for me, however, the yardstick is ireland's god is an astronaut.

the first track of theirs that i heard came from their 2005 album, "all is violent, all is bright". today, i can safely say i've heard pretty much everything that they've ever released and i'm still longing to hear more.

their sound, like every band of their genre, has more layers than a lasagna has pasta sheets. unlike other bands of their genre, however, they make it sound ridiculously easy.

if you hear the band from their first album (the end of the beginning, 2002) to their most recent work ('no return', a single from 'all things lost below', an album slated for a 2009 release), it is evident that they're only getting better. the feel has slowly inched from being fresh to deep and mature, but the core remains the same- dark, beautiful and perfectly composed.

which is not to say that the sound variation is very high across albums- far from it. they use a similar set of notes across most of their compositions but it isn't boring. the build-up in every track is different, thus taking the track, and invariably, the album to a different plane each time.

their use of vocals is extremely sparse- even more sparse than the standard post-rock/shoegaze. there are no lyrics whatsoever. just sounds.

their album/track titles are simple yet strange enough to qualify as post rock. their album art isn't particularly unique but it does its function of being reasonably attractive.

i've heard that their live performances are rather stellar and no matter how small or large the audience, these guys give it everything they've got.

with so much going for this band, it's no wonder, then, that god is an astronaut is an ideal of sorts for the discerning listener of the post-rock genre.