(Andy Synn continues our unexpected love affair with Astronoid on their new album, out now)
It’s funny to think about it – especially given the name of our site (which, again, should be taken with at least a pinch of salt and tongue firmly planted in cheek) but we’ve been supporters of whatever it is that Astronoid do (Post-Rock? Post-Metal? Prog-Pop?) for a long time now.
Heck, if you go all the way back to their time as Vattnet (formerly Vattnet Viskar) then our shared history goes back even further… and while that history hasn’t always been smooth sailing (I still stand by my opinion that their 2019 self-titled was a big let-down after their absolutely stunning first album) we’ve always tried to encourage our readers to give the band’s distinct, yet oddly divisive, sound a chance.
That being said, there’s a couple of things you need to bear in mind before giving Stargod a listen.
The first of which is that Stargod is not Air, and shouldn’t be judged as such (in fact one of the biggest mistakes you can make, whether as a reviewer or just as a listener, is to judge an album based entirely on what it’s not, rather than what it actually is… or, at the very least, what it’s trying to be).
And the second is that if you weren’t a fan of Astronoid prior to this, well, there’s a pretty good chance that Stargod won’t change your mind about that… in fact, if anything, the band’s decision to not only double-down on certain aspects of their sound (their self-appellated brand of “Dream Thrash” always been more Coheed and Cambria than Carcass and Coroner, and that’s even more apparent this time around) but to also give their early 80s Synth-Pop influences (think Duran Duran, Depeche Mode, A-Ha, etc) even more prominence will probably be a deal-breaker for anyone of a more musically “conservative” bent.
That’s not to say that you shouldn’t give the album a try if you’re curious… I just want to make sure you’re in the right headspace to appreciate it, and aren’t caught by surprise by what you’re going to hear.
