The negative thoughts are deafening.
Post rock as a genre is one that I struggle to describe clearly in words, when talking about it I often find it easier to fall back on listing the key bands I’m a fan of: “Mogwai, Maybeshewill, Russian Circles…” So it’s safe to say when one of my friends told me about Din Of Celestial Birds and led with “This band is a lot like Maybeshewill”, I suspected I would like them. Needless to say, the hunch was correct. Their new album, The Night Is For Dreamers, feels like a natural evolution of their previous work (EP 1), but distinct. They brought on producer and engineer, Joe Clayton, of No Studio, to assist with the album, and it definitely made a difference. The sound feels deeper, more layered, and I can definitely get behind it.
The Night Is For Dreamers sits in balance between more airy and ambient sections, and more frenetic, heavier sections. At one moment, arpeggios seem to echo above contemplative soundscapes, the next the sound will shift, becoming harder, almost angry, with energetic metal riffs above crashing drums. There is certainly contrast there, and yet the separate parts do not seem distinct; the songs seem to ebb and flow between frenetic and graceful, joy and sadness. One of Din Of Celestial Birds’ stated aims was “to build a narrative without words” in their music, and I would say that they’ve succeeded – the songs tell stories, and the vocal samples they do use only serve as the icing on the cake, amplifying the emotions of the music.
The album starts out joyous, with the energetic and warm feeling “Utopia”, but as the album continues it seems to get darker, more sorrowful. To me it tells a story of loss. One stand out track to me is “This Transient Spring”. The song starts with a sole piano, supplemented by minimalistic guitars, sampled strings, and glockenspiel – the drums only really come in around halfway through the track. This first section has a contemplative mood, to me, conjuring thoughts of a glockenspiel from school music classes. Around 3 minutes in, the guitars really come in, two of them playing high tempo, echoing notes, the third continuing the idea of the piano’s melody, building up to a wall of sound with the drums and bass before they suddenly cut out, leaving their echoes to fade toward silence. The song feels nostalgic, yet bittersweet, like a joyful memory lost to time.
The other track that really caught my attention was “MMEC”, it is one of the album’s three singles (the others being “Downpour” and “Laureate of American Lowlife”). It starts with an ambient, restrained section with minimalistic guitars, bass and drums, before a spoken word sample comes in, telling a story of the despair and self hatred brought on by depression. As the sample concludes, the song gets heavier, the bass and guitars swelling up to a wall of emotion before the songs inevitable conclusion. It feels almost cathartic to me, and is certainly a song that stuck with me.
The whole of The Night Is For Dreamers echoes this feeling, it’s emotional and bittersweet. Its concluding track, “I Love You But It’s Killing Me”leaves me angry at what could have been in life, at what was lost over the years. Much like the genre of post rock itself, it’s a feeling I struggle to put to words, but that is a compliment to the album itself; the emotions carried by the instruments feel too deep to reduce to mere sentences. In writing this album Din Of Celestial Birds set out to build “a narrative without words”, and they definitely pulled through. I look forward to find where they go next.
8/10
The Night Is For Dreamers is due for release this Friday, August 11th through A Cheery Wave Records (UK) and A Thousand Arms Records (USA). Din Of Celestial Birds will be playing this Thursday, August 10th at ArcTanGent Festival in Bristol.