mercoledì 11 febbraio 2026

La mia Recensione: Celestial Bums - Minutes From Heaven


 

Alex Dematteis 

Musicshockworld

Salford

11 Febbraio 2026


Celestial Bums - Minutes From Heaven


C’è un passaparola vivace nella Catalogna, tra la voglia di divertirsi, di lottare, di alzare le porte del cielo e di essere un mondo appartato. Riguarda la tensione emotiva di chi, cambiando perennemente, cerca una sosta e architetta un fascio sonoro oscillante, mutante, tra respiri e colorate ambizioni oniriche, un quadro che documenta gli incastri di partiture neo psichedeliche e l’intenzione di materializzare l'incanto come il suo opposto, per accattivarsi gittate di dream-pop senza mai cedere alla compiacenza. Al quarto album ci ritroviamo beatificati, irrorati, cullati da chitarre in volo, dalle poesie armoniche che coinvolgono e spargono petali di caleidoscopici capogiri. Il terzetto diventa istintivo, agglomerativo, in un allucinante stato di forma nel quale tutto riesce perfettamente, come se il miracolo più evidente avesse luogo in questo momento così fluido e generoso. Quando il lo-fi si affaccia, si ha la mappatura completa di un percorso che stabilisce l'allungamento delle proprie capacità, ampiamente dimostrate nel corso di una carriera ormai lunga quindici anni. Senza scudi, senza paure, senza la volontà di essere il centro del mondo, la formazione catalana trova allacciamenti nutrienti con la libertà che induce all’ispirazione, al contenuto, alla necessità di maturare una nuotata lenta nel Mar Mediterraneo, assorbendo le luci dorate,  il feeling bohémien, per creare un paravento, una base, una forma culturale che arriva come carezza continua. 


Il cantato di Japhy Ryder raccoglie migliaia di flussi coscienti, spaziando, visitando le corde vocali per poi trovare il proprio stile, l’orgoglio di chi con la penna costruisce monti. Pablo Gorostiago con il basso cavalca il velluto, circonda la melodia e tiene alta la capacità di non invadere, diventando il ponte perfetto tra l’essere un capitano e il gregario. Fatica con gioia e veste il suono con sapienza e talento. Augusto J. Marchetti usa le bacchette con una notevole conoscenza tecnica e la memoria di ascolti che hanno sicuramente strutturato la perfezione del suo lavoro, attento ai toni, ai colori, agli umori di ritmi che sanno scuotere così come circondare il perimetro di queste memorabili composizioni.

Il viaggio, l’identità, i confini, i ricordi, le idee, i rifugi, l’alcol mentale, le scorribande con un perno saggio convergono in queste orchidee, in queste mareggiate con una briglia salda, con una produzione che fa scendere la nebbia su Barcellona non dimenticandosi di un arcobaleno…


Più che un diario, una fotografia, sembra la collezione di metafore, di storie, di brillanti da indossare per una sera, per poi dismettere il tutto ed essere pronti al futuro, come una incisione breve ma profonda. Molti i maestri che si palesano, dai Low, ai Durutti Column, ai Sun Dial, passando dai Bardo Pound, ai fondamentali concittadini Los Planetas, per poi planare nei corridori dei luoghi dell’anima dei Love Spirals Downwards e infine agli spazi cognitivi dei Labradford.  Questo elenco è solo una comoda forma di pigrizia: se viaggiate tra i loro semi assaporerete di sicuro il fermento, la stagionatura, il setaccio e poi, come il colpo di coda di una balena, onde proprie che sanno liberarsi da questo combo di band per provocare la reazione di chi sa di avere una propria identità. Canzoni bandiera, fierezza e genuina difesa di un senso privato che rende l’album un gioiello da inumidire con le nostre lacrime di commozione.


Stupisce positivamente come leggerezza, densità, ampiezza e istinto siano così potenti, ma conservando la loro famosa timidezza: perché anche quando il suono si fa più rovente tutto appare come un velo che protegge sia chi suona che chi ascolta. Nessuna delle otto composizioni cerca il trucco catchy, il ritornello assassino e tutto ciò che possa relegare al facile raggiungimento della comodità, quanto piuttosto una volontà, altamente caldeggiata dal Vecchio Scriba, di laboratori mentali, di palchi dove quello che accade non è la ricerca del plauso bensì l’abbraccio sereno di chi prende le note e se le mette nel cuore. Morbide impalcature danzanti che cercano la casa, il gesto di una comoda connessione, le creature di Minutes From Heaven non hanno il destino amaro della morte presentando invece la forza della invulnerabilità, di amabili e confortanti sigilli che da sonori diventano solidi.


Saper prendere i decenni musicali e renderli elastici, accoglienti, parrebbe una utopia insensata però poi, quando l’ascolto termina, ti rendi conto che esistono enciclopedie sonore che sanno scrivere i segreti del tempo senza aver bisogno di pagine di carta….

La sensazione è quella di sentire delle note che, con il passare dei minuti, diventano un blocco floreale, annullando eventuali nripetizioni ma con l'arguzia di lasciare cadere dei petali in un circuito in espansione, come un’unica canzone in cerca di amici…


Song by Song


1 - Didn’t Know

Tra Dream Pop e la nostalgia di un Lo-fi parsimonioso, l’album comincia con un abbraccio acquatico, con la chitarra a dipingere onde e il tintinnio della batteria a suscitare la sensazione di un autunno che bussa alle porte dell’inverno. Chitarra in ascesa e il cantato che crea una romantica rivelazione…



2 - The Letters

L’inizio ci porta agli anni Ottanta, una lenta cavalcata con maggiori aperture, più coralità e un esercizio raffinato della sei corde a divenire un mantra contagioso, il registro della voce che si alza e sembra attaccarsi alle nuvole…



3 - Cross The Road

Momento estasiante, vorticoso, una ondata di polvere morale, che, rimanendo sospesa tra un cantato malinconico e gli schizzi di chitarra in una scala profumata delicata, fa di questo brano la summa di molte cose scritte nella prima parte della recensione. Allega anche venature dark folk americana noir, con una modalità mascherata ma in grado di suggerire territori diversi…



4 - A Dream (Guide Me From The Stars)

Compare un ritmo più veloce, e lo schema del brano ci riporta ai momenti potenti della Sarah Records, con una lunga introduzione prima che Japhy metta una gardenia nelle sue corde vocali, mentre tutto prosegue come una giornata di brina sul dream pop più raffinato…



5 - Walking On Ice

Il trio esagera, un peccato da noi richiesto e accolto, con la scrittura di questa canzone che è un sussidiario perfetto ed elaborato per capire l’intero lavoro, per una stasi minimalista che ossigena. L’atmosfera onirica prevale, rendendo al contempo metafisico il bisogno di cedere all’ascolto, con il cantato che conduce nella dimensione ultraterrena, in completo abbandono…



6 - Blurred Loves

Una poesia, un cantato come vagito celestiale e come una preghiera, un cercare supporto nella psichedelia degli anni Sessanta americani, un requiem, una melodia soave, una sacralità sublime regalata dal synth, un drumming accorto e meticoloso, il basso come termometro e lo sdoppiamento delle voci che rendono il tutto un gioiello senza tempo…



7 - Landslide

Il disco continua a crescere di emotività e strutture, consegnandoci piccoli richiami dei Doors mentre i Low applaudono commossi. Una prateria sconfinata dove gli strumenti sono corse e rincorse lente, in una fiumana neo psichedelica che si associa allo slowcore meno prevedibile, dando come risultato un’odissea in cui gli stili sono dune di sabbia su cui far cadere queste dolcissime note…



8 - Lifeblood 

Il cuore si ferma: la chiusura è un infarto assicurato, una gemma gotica rinascimentale, una pellicola perfetta per Kurosawa, un diamante in attesa di rivelarsi per poi denudarsi lentamente, come magica follia celeste. Incontriamo così un silenzio che riesce a tradurre se stesso, con tocchi sospesi di chitarra, la bellezza di un’armonia vocale dolente, gli stop and go al rallentatore, il suono quasi mascherato, la presenza dei Television che appare come un party segreto e poi quella pellicola ambient che si appiccica in maniera deliziosa: il risultato estrania ogni caos per essere un azzurro mantello di piume…


https://celestialbums.bandcamp.com/album/minutes-from-heaven



 





My Review: Celestial Bums - Minutes From Heaven


 

Alex Dematteis 

Musicshockworld

Salford

11 February 2026




Celestial Bums - Minutes From Heaven


There is lively word of mouth in Catalonia, between the desire to have fun, to fight, to raise the gates of heaven and to be a secluded world. It concerns the emotional tension of those who, constantly changing, seek a respite and craft an oscillating, mutating soundscape, between breaths and colourful dreamlike ambitions, a picture that documents the interlocking of neo-psychedelic scores and the intention to materialise enchantment as its opposite, to captivate dream-pop ranges without ever succumbing to complacency. 


On the fourth album, we find ourselves beatified, sprinkled, lulled by flying guitars, by harmonious poems that engage and scatter petals of kaleidoscopic dizziness. The trio becomes instinctive, agglomerative, in a hallucinatory state of form in which everything works perfectly, as if the most obvious miracle were taking place in this fluid and generous moment. When lo-fi appears, we have the complete mapping of a path that establishes the extension of their abilities, amply demonstrated over the course of a career that is now fifteen years long. Without shields, without fears, without the desire to be the centre of the world, the Catalan band finds nourishing connections with the freedom that leads to inspiration, content, the need to mature with a slow swim in the Mediterranean Sea, absorbing the golden lights and bohemian feeling to create a screen, a base, a cultural form that arrives like a continuous caress. 


Japhy Ryder's singing brings together thousands of conscious streams, ranging widely, exploring his vocal cords to find his own style, the pride of someone who builds mountains with his pen. Pablo Gorostiago rides the velvet with his bass, surrounding the melody and maintaining his ability not to intrude, becoming the perfect bridge between being a captain and a wingman. He works with joy and dresses the sound with wisdom and talent. Augusto J. Marchetti uses his drumsticks with remarkable technical knowledge and a memory of listening that has undoubtedly shaped the perfection of his work, attentive to the tones, colours and moods of rhythms that know how to shake and surround the perimeter of these memorable compositions.


 Travel, identity, boundaries, memories, ideas, refuges, mental alcohol, escapades with a wise pivot converge in these orchids, in these storm surges with a firm rein, with a production that brings fog down on Barcelona without forgetting a rainbow...

More than a diary, a photograph, it seems like a collection of metaphors, stories, diamonds to wear for an evening, then discard everything and be ready for the future, like a brief but profound engraving. Many masters reveal themselves, from Low to Durutti Column to Sun Dial, passing through Bardo Pound to the fundamental fellow citizens Los Planetas, then gliding into the corridors of the soul of Love Spirals Downwards and finally to the cognitive spaces of Labradford.  This list is just a convenient form of laziness: if you travel among their seeds, you will surely savour the fermentation, the ageing, the sifting and then, like the tail stroke of a whale, waves that know how to free themselves from this combo of bands to provoke the reaction of those who know they have their own identity.     


      Flag songs, pride and genuine defence of a private meaning that makes the album a jewel to be moistened with our tears of emotion.

It is positively surprising how lightness, density, breadth and instinct are so powerful, yet retain their famous shyness: because even when the sound becomes more intense, everything appears as a veil that protects both the performers and the listeners. None of the eight compositions seeks catchy tricks, killer choruses or anything that could relegate them to easy comfort, but rather a desire, highly advocated by the Old Scribe, for mental laboratories, stages where what happens is not the search for applause but the serene embrace of those who take the notes and put them in their hearts. Soft, dancing scaffolding seeking a home, the gesture of a comfortable connection, the creatures of Minutes From Heaven do not have the bitter fate of death, presenting instead the strength of invulnerability, of lovable and comforting seals that become solid from sound.  Knowing how to take musical decades and make them elastic and welcoming might seem like a senseless utopia, but then, when you finish listening, you realise that there are sound encyclopaedias that can write the secrets of time without needing pages of paper...


The sensation is that of hearing notes that, as the minutes pass, become a floral block, cancelling out any repetitions but with the wit to drop petals into an expanding circuit, like a single song in search of friends...


Song by Song


1 - Didn't Know

Between Dream Pop and the nostalgia of a sparse Lo-fi, the album begins with an aquatic embrace, with the guitar painting waves and the tinkling of the drums evoking the feeling of autumn knocking on winter's door. The guitar rises and the vocals create a romantic revelation...



2 - The Letters

The beginning takes us back to the 1980s, a slow ride with greater openness, more choruses and a refined exercise of the six strings becoming a contagious mantra, the voice rising and seeming to cling to the clouds...



3 - Cross The Road

An entrancing, swirling moment, a wave of moral dust, which, suspended between melancholic vocals and guitar riffs in a delicate, fragrant scale, makes this track the sum of many things written in the first part of the review. It also adds hints of dark American folk noir, in a masked way but capable of suggesting different territories... 


 4 - A Dream (Guide Me From The Stars)

A faster rhythm appears, and the song's structure takes us back to the powerful moments of Sarah Records, with a long introduction before Japhy puts a gardenia in his vocal cords, while everything continues like a frosty day on the most refined dream pop...



5 - Walking On Ice

The trio exaggerates, a sin we requested and welcomed, with the writing of this song, which is a perfect and elaborate subsidiary to understanding the entire work, for a minimalist stasis that oxygenates. The dreamlike atmosphere prevails, while at the same time making metaphysical the need to give in to listening, with the singing leading into the otherworldly dimension, in complete abandonment...


6 - Blurred Loves

A poem, sung like a heavenly cry and a prayer, seeking support in the psychedelia of the American sixties, a requiem, a sweet melody, a sublime sacredness provided by the synth, careful and meticulous drumming, the bass as a thermometer and the doubling of voices that make the whole thing a timeless gem...



7 - Landslide

The album continues to grow in emotion and structure, giving us little reminders of The Doors while Low applauds with emotion. A boundless prairie where the instruments are slow runs and chases, in a neo-psychedelic flood that is associated with the least predictable slowcore, resulting in an odyssey in which the styles are sand dunes on which to drop these sweet notes...


8 - Lifeblood 

The heart stops: the ending is a guaranteed heart attack, a Gothic Renaissance gem, a perfect film for Kurosawa, a diamond waiting to be revealed and then slowly stripped bare, like magical celestial madness. We thus encounter a silence that manages to translate itself, with suspended touches of guitar, the beauty of a painful vocal harmony, slow-motion stops and starts, the almost masked sound, the presence of Television that appears like a secret party, and then that ambient film that sticks delightfully: the result estranges all chaos to become a blue cloak of feathers...



https://celestialbums.bandcamp.com/album/minutes-from-heaven



sabato 7 febbraio 2026

My review: Ist Ist - Dagger


 


Alex Dematteis

Musicshockworld 

Salford

8-2-2026


Ist Ist - Dagger


Every day, we are immersed in investigations, whether we are aware of it or not, and as a result, we often find ourselves without concrete results. Music provides us with some relief from the tension and melancholy caused by not knowing. But we have to deal with the question that haunts us, that gives us doubts and even the most dangerous of all: the one that stabs us, directly or indirectly, that feeds on our pain, consecrating its immunity, which is nothing more than the best result achievable.


The apotheosis is reached by the four Mancunian pirates who, now on their fifth album, break the mould, pulverise their own glorious past and throw songs at us like freshly mined diamonds, unpolished, natural, treacherous, majestic, wicked. However, they could not do without this incredible combination of skill, experience and invulnerability in the progression that their DNA preserves. Dagger is an eloquent mystery, exposing our controversial petals to the fluorescent brilliance of ten corals which, emerging from the waves, glide over our brains.


Physical, mental, contemplative, exploratory, stuck in a constant interplay of light and shadow, this work magnetises skills, makes them motivating, whispers lethal paths, where there is no waste of time but rather a space to cultivate. And here are the seeds, the wait devoted to contemplation and understanding, through songs like needle pricks, until they change shape, becoming a nocturnal exploration without pause. Ist Ist rush forward with the athletic frenzy of those who are aware that these last twelve years spent together are continuous springboards, where research is already essence. However, as honest men, they do not give up on study, and the songs are not games or pastimes but rather identities to be built, modified, and directed towards the most majestic meaning: to please and be useful to those who have tattooed their essence on their souls.


It disrupts the sequence, the depth of a concrete ability not to deactivate the artistic path of previous times, but above all the courage to pay attention to dynamics, production, and musical inserts not as technicalities but as arrangements that are now obsolete in the field of composition. The song form thus emerges strengthened, regaining colour and meaning. They are not afraid of melodies that stick in the mind, almost always pairing them with rhythm, with dance that moves us towards their vault, which, though impenetrable, manages to grant us access and habitability in their breaths. 


Dagger projects, offers, steals sighs and induces deep reflection: their steps are deeper, they have defeated the comparisons that only fools made, and they find themselves light, with their original traits, owing nothing to anyone, revealing without a doubt that, if listened to with deep understanding, one can glimpse the breadth and depth of skill that make the past nothing more than a stupid defensive barrier. The four go further, they are something else, they are the gaze of the present, the instinct of musical killers with songs that are shocking in their craftsmanship and resilience. They continue through the alleys of Manchester, knowing in advance that these songs have no place to start from, but magnetic waves to ride and shift boundaries.


Concrete, wind, salt, dust, woods, construction sites, mines, caves, swamps, deserts, electrical cables: this is only part of their creation, of a world they have built with hard work and above all pride, finally determining a multi-purpose blade, to be used as a support or as a lethal weapon. It is listening that will decide, relegating an enormous and constructive responsibility. Without any difficulty, the Old Scribe affirms that Dagger is the passport, the journey, the light, the highest and most concrete point of their entire career, an engraving that does not deform or hurt but teaches, educates, creating through love a sense of bliss that leads to solitary joy as well as mass joy. 


They grew up through concerts, spending time visiting a world that slowly became wider and wider, expanding their cognitive horizons and translating everything into music as a laboratory, from selection to absorption, translation and mutation, because, in truth, the four of them are capable of maturing artistic molecules and at the same time speeding up creative acts.


Knowing how to express the adherence of one's instincts to a higher, conceptual vision demonstrates how this is a sharp album, a block of concrete on which (most likely) flowers and silk will be placed in the future. Now, right now, with these blades, these cracks suited to emotion, Ist Ist outline the future with a fog suited to thoughtfulness, to slowing down bravado and becoming wiser. You can feel the experience of hours in the recording studio, as well as on stage, or even walking the streets of their journey, the maturation of Adam's singing (skilled at compacting his old clichés and creating new opportunities for his ever-perfidious and celestial tone), Andy's bass as a blanket and not just a shock, Joel's drumming as a strategic force that injects confidence into the veins and adds melody, and Mat's work on guitars and synths as an alchemist who sees the future and draws it with skill and great agility. 


The lyrics deserve our scrutiny, the time to interact with Adam's profound versatility, which throughout the album is capable of creating bridges, visions, killer choruses, exploratory verses in the stanzas, of insisting perfectly with words like stones, of hiding the right to one's own intimacy with reasoning that is often seemingly simple but uncomfortable, for absolute truths that make reading and containing them within ourselves complex. Even when adding rainbows, they are signals that fade into grey, into the unconscious that knows no suitable light, demonstrating once again his estrangement from banality.


The music becomes multifaceted, beyond the fast/slow rhythm, there are evident insertions of sounds that solidify the form, the expressive mode, here more evident and compact. The musical genres are connected with wisdom, without forcing, with an inclination towards agglomeration that makes everything fluid. There is no shortage of post-punk whips and an almost synth-pop sound to make everything more accessible than in the past, but there are several new features. The interplay between keyboards and rhythm guitars is epic, with rhythm changes and choruses filled with sparkling crystals. They highlight, I would say finally, the need for catchy thrills, for not hiding a modern propensity and ancient essentiality, to set the whole thing towards the mystery of songs that live on a chaos that is not boiling but dense, to explore hypotheses of harmony with the sun never experienced in Manchester. If Architecture presented them to us as phenomena of condensation of the known, with enormous peaks, here we have an almost new formation, certainly matured and different, with an absolute inclination towards lightness, without depriving it of density...


But it is not a happy album, nor can it be: Adam himself recognises the violence and heaviness of the world, the only joy seems to be the possibility of writing songs, of creating a screen that becomes a mirror, where one can take refuge to grasp illusions, which nowadays remains an act of courage....

We find ourselves completely enveloped by intense, full, deep harmonies, the result of a perfect amalgam, which comes from a combination of intellectuality that cannot dominate without an instinct that continues to wander through the grooves, generating ecstasy and tears that are more visionary than visible, anticipating the direction of our understanding. The psychophysical tension remains constant: the prelude to a twilight that encompasses spirituality and a pleasant murderous portent...


Song by Song


1 - I Am The Fear

The temple of revelation shows us an insurrection, a musical novelty structured in a danceable, powerful track, with electronic ranges that allow moments of suspension before shining with momentum, with heavier guitars and a synth scale irrigating the veins of a fear that here becomes a person, in the track that most shows the Sheffield side of the four's entire career. A seductive and robust hypnotic hammer to open one's body...



2 - Makes No Difference

After the initial seconds reminiscent of the leaden atmosphere of Rust by Man Of Moon, Ist Ist return to the harmonic and visual crossovers of their penultimate work Light A Bigger Fire, with the ability, through an energetic flow of synth and bass-drum combo, to raise the harmony and power towards the territory of a sky that can thus absorb the immense magical touches of a chorus that smells of soft drugs, giving a controllable euphoria...


3 - Warning Signs

This song encapsulates the entire career of the four Mancunians: their ability to translate and convey their DNA in the compelling temporal adherence to genres that reveal themselves but with respect, sparing the poor side to generate a fast, ferocious lava flow, in a rhythm that presses on like words, a continuous warning that highlights how presence and absence are often the same enemy... It is post-punk that is disinfected by an almost masked synth pop. Andy and Mat's play of emotional swings allows Joel to chase everything away with rhythmic precision, while Adam governs the breath and tone with a familiar but here almost romantic vocal register... 




4 - Burning

And it is amazement: the opening seconds of the song take us back to the 1970s, with perfect melodic force and anger, and then give us obsessive textures, lyrics that are a fire doll, another wound that tears through our security, making our minds subject to perfect obedience to listening. A song for open spaces, majestic, made of the same stuff as U2's Bullet The Blue Sky: skilfully able to fill the sky with our emotions...


5 - The Echo

The melodic spark, the celebration of a loop that dispels fears, offering emotions and joy, masterfully intertwined with tension. It will become the ideal moment to turn the band's fans into a redundant choir that will end up climbing onto the stage. The rhythm guitar is tar, the bass is comforting thunder, the keyboard is an electronic toy that permeates the whole perfectly, and the drumming is a concert of muscles in sublime agitation...



6 - Encouragement

Cinema, Tangerine Dream, anticipation, slow development, the dominance of creativity, the navel of this entire album find in this song the guide to understanding the miracle we are listening to. Sudden changes, moods, a pop side seeking space, a dark side that remains like a scar, Andy's bass sweeping away fear and Joel turning his instrument into a treble clef with claws, and then we arrive at the chorus, long, obsessively disruptive and fascinating...


7 - I Remember Everything

The most solemn moment, between light and clouds bidding farewell, in an atmosphere that relaxes the muscles but not the emotions, with a chorus that brings tears to the eyes, with a truly compelling interplay of melodic winds leading up to a guitar solo that lifts our gaze...



8 - Obligations

Mystery in the lyrics, musical continuity, without smudges, for a song that manifests their mental movement, the great voracity to create power and light, with a melancholic flavour that makes the mood the right embrace for this stage that seems to be the compression of their last two works. 


9 - Song For Someone

The slow atmospheres of Architecture return, night-time alleys like a beer drunk in the middle of the streets, the synth reproducing the angelic sound of the stars and Adam's voice like a heavy and enchanting whisper...



10 - Ambition

Despair can become a lullaby, an enchanting refuge that reveals how the mind is an infinite, immeasurable hole, and Adam's words are the springboard for a musical structure that becomes a cloak while everything seems abandoned, with an embrace that starts with The Art Of Lying and ends with this last spark, making the band's obvious writing skills emblematic, which concludes with a song that brings things back to where they started: total and devoted adoration for their immense qualities... 































La mia Recensione: Celestial Bums - Minutes From Heaven

  Alex Dematteis  Musicshockworld Salford 11 Febbraio 2026 Celestial Bums - Minutes From Heaven C’è un passaparola vivace nella Catalogna, t...