Brighter Than a Thousand Suns

Maximalist synthpop

Brighter Than a Thousand Suns, abbreviated BTATS, is not the Killing Joke album of that name nor Robert Jungk's 1958 book. The band was formerly Self Made Soul, and Last.fm and Rate Your Music give the name change as May 24, 2010, while a label press release and Spirit of Metal say formed in 2007, so the founding year is open. The early band came from New Milford, Connecticut, and played post-hardcore. A 2011 press release lists the vocalists Angelika Hirtler and Alex Anderson, Matt Richter and Randy Roswell on guitar; we suspect Angelika Hirtler and Angelika Roswell are the same person, which no source states. Tragic Hero Records announced the signing on June 8, 2011, with Survival Machines to be recorded in Baltimore with the producer Paul Leavitt, for release on September 20, 2011.

A debut EP, The Demon Haunted World, produced by Leavitt, preceded it, and the press release claims Warped Tour dates and a PacSun tour with Saosin. The band shifted to synthpop by 2013: The End of Suffering EP (June 11, 2013, three tracks) and Flux (May 6, 2014, four tracks) were produced, engineered, mixed and mastered by Randy Roswell. Closure (October 7, 2022) and the album Truth to Materials (August 21, 2024, self-released) followed, then singles in late 2025 and early 2026 and the album Private Faces on April 7, 2026. They now describe themselves on Bandcamp as maximalist synthpop and are based in Winston-Salem.

ReGen Magazine's Duke Togo reviewed Truth to Materials on December 30, 2024 as sharply focused and finely tuned, saying the band captures the essentials of 1980s synthpop better than most synthwave artists. We found no interviews and no setlist.fm or live data.