“I hope that road leads you somewhere beautiful, somewhere you belong.”
For an album all about travel and destinations, it’s fitting that the Leeds-based Din of Celestial Birds have some serious motion behind them. Their debut album The Night is For Dreamers was the product of years of work; much like any band who’d released their opening statement before the pandemic tore through the nascent 2020s and found bands of all sizes scrambling to maintain momentum, they effectively had to rewrite their blueprint in the hopes of making it stick. It certainly did stick, with the quintet staking a claim as the best newcomers in the instrumental scene by the end of 2023 as the record found its audience, many of whom await the band’s next move with bated breath.
Signing to Big Scary Monsters earlier this year was a good sign that they were about to make a statement, but Takeoffs & Landings eschews any buildup and instead crashes in with the force of a jet engine as the title track whips up a storm of energy, a fairly compact three minutes in comparison to their usual fare. Trimming things down and going straight for the throat as an opening gambit is smart, the hooks coming hard and fast, as bassist/secondary synth player Matt Benatan and powerhouse drummer Vince Knight-Schrijver combining their skills as a rhythm section to be reckoned with. Importantly, the band remind listeners they’ve got three guitarists (Andie Gill, Tom Hazlehurst and Chris Core, with Gill pulling double duty on synths) and know exactly what to do with that kind of arrangement.
Much more than thickening their sound, it opens up space and texture; when the band’s dialled in and firing on all cylinders, you’ll know about it. Case in point: the last minute and a half of “Marmoris“, harmonies and tremolo creating a vast soundscape while Knight-Schrijver’s galloping triplet rhythms fill in the gaps before the song briefly straightens out, driving home the fact that Din of Celestial Birds didn’t come to play. Noticeably harder and heavier than their debut (as typified by wrecking-ball lead single “From This Summit We Can See the Heavens and Stars“), this set of eight songs is a tightly wound instrumental concept album that explores the earth and cosmos in equal measure, as well as what it takes to move forward in our lives and who we become when we get there.
There’s a clarity of vision and purpose here that’s given an added dimension by how punchy everything sounds, Joe Clayton and Brad Boatright doing sterling jobs on production, mixing and mastering between them. Writing an emotional rollercoaster like “When Suddenly…“, every bit as unpredictable in its musical detours as its title implies, is half the battle; it’s the sound that really ties everything together, the second-half climax captured in as much detail as you could possibly wish for. These are pieces that hinge on arrangement and nuance, like when “Migratory Patterns” splits a 3-against-2 polyrhythm between Benatan and all three guitarists at once, the building tension resolved with a perfectly timed drop into 4/4 as the song finds its footing, full to the brim with melodies that grab you by the shoulders and demand you feel something. If ‘I Hope You Find Somewhere Beautiful, Somewhere You Belong’ doesn’t land, you might already be dead.
As for closing track “Second Star to the Right, And Straight On Til’ Morning“, it’s a breathtaking display of everything Din of Celestial Birds are good at, culminating in a full-on moment of musical frisson that proves beyond doubt that they’re coming for the UK instrumental crown. It’s a pretty crowded field (and one look at the recent Cheery Wave Records compilation track list will tell you the wider scene is in rude health), but Takeoffs & Landings deserves to be mentioned in the same breath as Tertia, One Time For All Time or Those Who Tell the Truth Shall Die… when it comes to second-album evolutions. An iron fist in a velvet glove, soaring and shredding in equal measure. You thought The Night is For Dreamers was good? It turns out they were just warming up.
