Long-running post-rock greats God Is An Astronaut will release their new album Epitaph on April 27 via Napalm Records (pre-order). That's the artwork above, created by French artist Fursy Teyssier, who leads the band Les Discrets and used to play in Alcest.

The music on this album came from a sad, tragic place. As the band tells us, "The inspiration behind this album is about our seven-year old cousin who died under tragic circumstances. As a family, it’s been very traumatic and left us personally feeling a sense of helplessness, despair and dread over this tremendous loss. The music was our way of dealing with this."

They also add that it's their most personal album compared to any other album they've made. "Its objective is not to transport you away but to bring you to the moment." Production-wise, they went for a vintage approach. "We wanted to keep the album dark and the sounds more lived in. We decided on analogue mastering so it’s more reminiscent of earlier records rather the current trend of loud polished glossy records," they said.

We're premiering the video for the title track, where you can really feel the sense of despair and dread coming through. "Epitaph" starts out as a minimal, ambient song, before taking on some doom metal influence in the mid-section, and then building to a climactic, funereal conclusion. "The whole album including this song reflects on different perspectives of the dark reality of untimely death. This song touches directly on everything from childhood innocence (vulnerability) to the moment you are given the shocking news, to the aftermath of overwhelming grief that faces a family over a tragic loss," the band adds.

This is actually the second video that was made for the song, because the band says that the first one "while well made, missed the point entirely." They then "took matters into [their] own hands and made a video with post mortem photography that directly reflects the subject matter as it was important that the listener understands what this is about and it not be open to interpretation." The photos in the video are credited to Stanley B. Burns, MD & The Burns Archive. Watch below.

The Irish band last toured North America in 2016, and at the time they said it might be their final tour here. We asked them if they've given any further thought to whether or not they'll return, and they said "we hope to return [to North America] in April next year." Good news! Stay tuned. Meanwhile, they have tour dates in Europe coming up this year.