Din Of Celestial Birds – The Night Is For Dreamers | Album Review

For the past few years, Din Of Celestial Birds have been making quiet and somewhat humble chirps from within their nest. Now they are about to do more than just take flight.

Depending on whom you ask, Din Of Celestial Birds are either one of UK post-rock’s most under-sung gems or one of its most promising collectivities. Arguably, they could be accurately dubbed as both. Off the back of the small smattering of songs found found within their debut 2019 EP – suitably titled EP 1 – the Leeds instrumental quintet have garnered a devoted following for themselves and have performed alongside the likes of Telepathy, Hidden Mothers and even Canada’s Respire. Granted, to call an act under-sung when they only have approximately thirty-or-so minutes of material to their name may be somewhat hyperbolic, but given the brilliance of the EP in question, such claims are justifiably valid. Now, with EP 1 seeing the band undertaking a slow unfolding of wings, the band’s debut LP The Night Is For Dreamers is set to witness Din Of Celestial Birds leave their humble nest.

A record of pure human emotion, The Night Is For Dreamers is quite frankly a stunning body of work that directly dispels the notion that post-rock is a genre reserved for awkward and po-faced stoicism. By harnessing an array of textures – from synthetic keys to pummelling percussion – the band have woven a tapestry of noise as rich, vivid violent as life itself. Opener ‘Utopia’ immediately bears witness to this. Harkening thoughts of the quiet splendours of PG. Lost, the immaculate contemplation of BRUIT ≤ and the sugary adolescent giddiness of Vasa, the ceaselessly bounding track is a feverish and fluid demonstration of intent, its ironised fretwork contrasting wonderfully its inherent sense of childlike wonder, joy and bounding energy. In fact, the track highlights the very crux of this record – the unquantifiable nature of the human condition.

Each of the eight tracks within this record stand as musical slices of life documenting particular people in certain situations; cinematic soundtracks to scenes deserving of musical embodiments if you will. Much like the mercurial nature of humanity and the biologically induced emotions that drive us, this record is positively alive with the sense of fluid nuance that characterises the nature of being as a whole. The end result is something cinematic, grandiose, while also subtly humble and grounded. ‘Junebug’ bears further credence to this, with its summer-blessed joy shifting to a sense of creeping melancholia that’s unique to the summer months, and the following ‘Launch’ marries beauty with rage in a way that was once only achieved by the likes of Maybeshewill and Mountain Caller.

‘Laureate Of An American Lowlife’ ultimately stands as the record’s crowning jewel however. Inspired by the intimate writings of troubled writer Charles Bukowski, the track is alive with a sense of post-metal menace that’s holistic, yet anxious, and fearful. Even with its hulking heft mirroring that of the work of Russian Circles and Pelican, the track presents the human form in its most contorted and dark form. It’s a towering and fiery monument that rivals the intensity of the character it documents, but the following ‘This Transient Spring’ – a track led by keys, neoclassical moments and swelling fretwork – balances the rage with tender serenity.

Admittedly, a record that authentically mirrors the human condition may be a fantastic concept, but of course without the finesse and skill required to pull it off, such an exercise is ultimately futile. Thankfully though, The Night Is For Dreamers sounds colossal. Much like the aforementioned likes of BRUIT ≤ and P.G Lost and akin to the titans of the genre like God Is An Astronaut and MONO, Din Of Celestial Birds have crafted a body of work that’s immaculate, musically stunning and cinematic with its sense of towering grandeur. Tapestries of textures bundle and swell prior to unfurling to sparse moments of threadbare minimalism in a manner that’s fluid and yet natural – once again mirroring the sporadic nature of humanity – in a way that can only be executed by a collective harnessing a masterful understanding of the genre. ‘Downpour’ and ‘MMEC’ are wondrous examples of this, with ‘Downpour’ enjoying chaos and joy in the same liminal space and ‘MMEC’ interweaving neoclassical moments with whitewashed barrages of distortion in a way that’s contrasting, yet ultimately unifying. Frankly, only a band with a perfect understanding of dynamics could achieve something as stunning and technically bedazzling such as this.

As the record reaches its finale with the musical portrait of addiction and mental strife that is ‘I Love You But It’s Killing Me’, whilst it would be easy and most simple to compare this body of work to a host of artists this band evidently take inspiration from, doing so would be criminally unjust. Yes, the esoteric emotion of God Is An Astronaut, the tangible human beauty of Maybeshewill, the hulking heft of Russian Circles and dynamics of MONO are all present, but the debut from Din Of Celestial Birds is more than the sum of its respective parts. In fact, The Night Is For Dreamers is not just a post-rock record, but a body of work that bares the boundless ingenuity of the entire national scene that this band wondrously represent. Without question, this is post rock at its very best and a record that truly, intricately and immaculately represents the unquantifiable human form in artistic manner free from the limiting and ultimately quantifiable nature of language. To return to where this review began, The Night Is For Dreamers doesn’t just see this Din Of Celestial Birds taking flight, it sees them soaring to heights unreachable by many within their genre.