God is an Astronaut are a 4 piece who hail from Glen of the Downs, Ireland. Taking their name from a line in Clive Barker's film 'Nightbreed', the band was formed by twin brothers Niels Kinsella and Torsten Kinsella. After recording their first demos, and with numerous labels offering deals (yet looking for the band to add vocals to their music), they instead decided to set up their own label 'Revive Records' to release their debut album 'The End of the Beginning' in 2002. This crucially allowed the band to remain in complete creative control. Speaking on their debut, which was originally intended as the bands farewell to the music industry, the band say "we just wanted to finish on a release we were really proud of, we had no expectations at all." Over the next couple of years after the album's low key release, the band started to pick up interest mainly through word of mouth on-line, with rave reviews on blogs leading to both video singles from the album "The End of the Beginning" and "From Dust to the Beyond" receiving airplay across Europe on MTV. This was when the world was first exposed to the bands strong usage of visuals to enhance their music.

To this point God Is An Astronaut was purely a studio project. With word spreading, the band wanted to get out and to start playing the material live and so enlisted Lloyd Hanney (who was trained by the late jazz drumming legend Johnny Wadham) to join on drums. When first out on the road their tours included self-made visuals that were added to the live show with the purpose to enhance the emotion and structure of the songs. Initially the band picked up a wave of publicity from this, often due to the shocking images that featured on the visuals, however as their confidence grew as live performers, they put the emphasis back on their music and released their breakthrough album "All is Violent, All is Bright" in early 2005.

2010 seen the release of the band's 5th album 'Age Of The Fifth Sun' and the band go from a 3 piece to a 4 piece with keyboard/piano player Jamie Dean joining the band. Lloyd Hanney departed from the band in early 2011 with Michael Fenton taking over on full time drumming duties. The band received rave reviews and the best ever reactions to their concerts due to the explosive energy of the new lineup. As with all the bands music to date, they describe the record as "a photograph or a snapshot of who we are in that moment of time". Despite being 5 albums in, the band's outlook and ethos still remains the same as it did on their debut - the sole priority being on releasing and performing music they love.

Source: http://www.facebook.com/godiaa?sk=info