Gods & Punks Premiere New Single Dimensionaut / Eye in the Sky
Brazilian heavy rockers Gods & Punks are working toward the release of their impending fourth full-length. Titled The Sounds of the Universe and set to issue through respected countryman purveyor Abraxas as well as the US-based Forbidden Place Records, the new LP is preceded April 23 by the two-songer single Dimensionaut / Eye in the Sky, about which the band has provided extensive notes and perspective. Each single comes with its own artwork and the first of them, “Dimensionaut” purport to summarize the narrative that’s taken place on the across the band’s to-date offerings, presumably to that “Eye in the Sky” and the other pieces of the album can pick up from there and continue to unfold and conclude what they call the ‘Voyage Series.’
“Eye in the Sky” picks up where late-2019’s And the Celestial Ascension (discussed here) left off, and also calls back to the band’s 2016 debut EP, The Sounds of the Earth — as several of the new album songs will — its languid, jammed-out foundation providing a spacious counterpoint to its more driving predecessor. Gods & Punks count “Dimensionaut” among the most intense material they’ve put together, and fair enough. They recorded at Estúdio MATA, in Niterói, part of Rio de Janeiro, and Kleber Mariano and André Leal at Estúdio Jukebox — the same locale and team behind the last outing — and though not lacking push, the sound is duly lush when they want it to be, the organ expanding their already atmospheric basis of guitar atop the fluid grooves of drums and bass in “Eye in the Sky.” It’s a nine-minute sampling, all told, and the band clearly picked the two tracks in order to establish the dynamic they’re working with throughout the album, one end of the spectrum to the other, as well as the ways all the songs tie together.
I haven’t heard the full record yet, but they sound firmly in command throughout both “Dimensionaut” and “Eye in the Sky” as you can hear below, and one should expect no less for a band who are engaging their past in order to tie up a narrative they’ve stretched across multiple releases at this point. What does the saga’s final moments hold? Well, you’d probably need a lyric sheet to figure that out, but Gods & Punks make an enticing argument for engaging with their storyline’s final chapter in these songs, and even if you don’t know how they got to this point — the Bandcamp is right there if you’re up for digging back — Dimensionaut / Eye in the Sky readily demonstrates that it’s not too late to get on board whatever kind of ship it is they’re taking beyond the stratosphere. There’s room for any and all.
Comment from the band follows. Please enjoy:
Gods & Punks on Dimensionaut / Eye in the Sky:
We chose to release two singles on the same day to represent what will be The Sounds of the Universe, the last release of the Voyage Series, which began in 2017 with Into the Dunes of Doom and featured Enter the Ceremony of Damnation, 2018, and And the Celestial Ascension, from 2020. We have been telling a story for 4 years that will finally be finished, in a representative way to the narrative.
Dimensionaut was the last song composed in the cabin, with the 5 members who recorded the other Voyage Series records. Eye in the Sky brings a finalized and reimagined version of the very first track of our first EP, The Sounds of the Earth, in 2016. One demonstrates where we are now, the other demonstrates how we would do today, something we did when we had just started play together.
The Sounds of the Universe will deal with a total of 9 songs: 5 tracks from our debut EP in new, revamped versions, and another 4 completely new tracks, composed between 2019 and 2020. The album is the last release of the Voyage Series, but the first chapter of history. And whoever takes the time to listen to the songs in the correct order of the story, will understand why we did it. And with these two tracks, you will have an idea of the album that we will release soon.
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Tags: Abraxas Records, Brazil, Forbidden Place Records, Gods & Punks, Gods & Punks The Sounds of the Universe, Rio de Janeiro, The Sounds of the Universe
