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: The Pogues (Featuring Kirsty MacColl) Fairytale of New York

 The Pogues - Fairytale of New York

Ci sono ricorrenze che avanzano, si mostrano, hanno dei desideri e già tutto questo farebbe pensare alla fortuna…

Poi vi sono cuori più profondi, attenti, che passano, in silenziosa parata, a perlustrare quei lati dell’esistenza senza fari. Non sono favole, poesie e tantomeno dei bei sogni, bensì il pavimento di rapporti in difficoltà, in cui la precarietà fa bruciare la pelle del cuore, e non solo.

In quei luoghi gli stenti, le lacrime, i disagi e le ambasce sono un abbraccio poco voluto ma esistente. E chi ci mette lo sguardo ha la saggezza dell’intimità giudiziosa, in generosa empatia e solidarietà. Il Natale è ormai una festività corrotta e va corretta con canzoni come questa, che per il Vecchio Scriba è l’unica che mostra davvero interesse per vicende che sono terremoti e che vengono, disgraziatamente, nascoste sotto gli addobbi, le luci e il chiasso di gente senza rispetto nei confronti di chi invece ha un autobus pieno di strazianti e complesse tragedie.

Ma anche da un litigio può nascere un arcobaleno a irradiare la corteccia cerebrale di nuove panoramiche visive.

Sia benedetta la modalità del duetto narrativo, di una melodia folk irlandese, della valigia e della visione di strade strette, senza cielo, a New York. Un pianoforte e una tastiera sono i semi di un prato immaginifico che pian piano copre la storia di dolcezza e malinconia, in un teatro punk dentro una pellicola cinematografica, mentre perlustra lati umani che paiono banditi in cerca di una resa…

L’epica e la nostalgia compiono passi di valzer mentre la band prende Shane e Kirsty e li mette uno di fronte all’altro sul ring, in un match di pugilato nel quale nessuno getta la spugna sino a quando il clima non conosce la ragione per modificare il tutto.

Il brano ha un’alternanza micidiale, su piani emotivi e razionali, e pure musicali, che induce alle riflessioni ma solo come successione a lacrime, emozioni e urla lanciate tutte sul vento di un dramma che illumina anche chi è avaro di tutto ciò: eccovi il vero miracolo di Natale…

I contrasti trovano spazio nei nuovi sogni e nelle delusioni che il testo riassume ma con garbata gentilezza, pur non mancando anche espressioni volgari, tuttavia necessarie.

La sincerità in musica non può avere il bavaglio e FONY lo dimostra pienamente, senza indugi.

Tutto parte da una prigione, con l’alcol a segnare il respiro del protagonista (MacGowan), qui con l’unica voce che sembra far apparire davanti ai nostri occhi ettolitri di amarezze e sogni.

E, mentre ascolta un vecchio brano (The Rare Old Mountain), la tristezza della memoria si condensa, straziandolo, con l’amore per una donna che ricompare, scatenando l’ardore di un sentimento mai sopito. I due battagliano, lottano, mettono barriere sino a quando la resa arriva grazie ai sogni di lui, mai pronto a rinunziare a chi gli fa battere forte il cuore e che dimentica i problemi e va oltre.

Nell’autodistruzione amorosa vi sono petali e raggi che si muovono tra bestemmie e insulti, ma con il progetto di silenziare il tutto.

Ecco che la disillusione del sogno americano trova i suoi confini, i limiti e il pressappochismo di una democrazia che ha causato nuove povertà. Per risolvere questo problema non rimane che l’amore, che unisce.

Nei ricordi l’Irlanda diventa un balcone, un bisogno di panorami mai inquinati, dove ogni cosa scorre senza  gli inganni della modernità. Non è un caso che molti suoi cittadini negli anni Ottanta siano andati negli States sbagliando il momento: Reagan stava distruggendo senza impedimenti e la profonda umanità di questi nuovi emigranti trovava, improvvisamente, un semaforo rosso, un calcio ai sogni, subendo una serie di mortificazioni tremende, finendo in una gabbia inimmaginabile.

In tutto questo la composizione riesce a far compiere alla nostra visione dei fatti raccontati un’analisi dettagliata di chi, in una guerra non vista e mai evidenziata, si trova tra alcol, rabbia e la consolazione di amori impossibili…

La voce rauca e alienata, piena di nebbia e brividi di Shane, ci porta nei canali di una mente sensibile e quindi vulnerabile, con ampie falcate nelle pareti di desideri a cui a fatica riesce a obiettare. In questa stupefacente credibilità, lo affianca una fata con le gote arrossate (come la sua ugola) che scalcia e dichiara guerra al suo amato. Un duetto/duello che esplora la fiumana di differenze tra il cantante nato a Pembury e poi divenuto irlandese e la ragazza di Croydon, trasportati come per non magia in un luogo distante dalle loro radici. La canzone assembla tutto con meticolosità, puntando i fari dell’energetica pulsione Celtic Rock di una formazione che, partendo da basi storiche conclamate, sa aggiungere novità a un matrimonio che si rivela perfetto. Si danza, lentamente prima (abbracciati) e poi velocemente, come in uno scalmanato rituale fisico che contempla lo spostamento e la distribuzione di un sudore vero.

Ed ecco l’evidente opposizione al Natale, come un libro di saggistica non contemplato, ma ritenuto dagli artisti in questione assolutamente necessario. Apparentemente leggera, la composizione è una delicata operazione chirurgica, un valore aggiunto inaspettato, un insieme di linguaggi da strada, di chi nel niente ha un tutto da improvvisare e un nulla da perdere…

I Pogues offrono la mano, una coperta per fare della speranza e dello scambio dei doni una possibilità di arricchimento, che non passa attraverso la mediocrità di regali, i quali sono possibili solo per chi ha avuto fortune e capacità che non gravitano di certo nella strada di coloro che la povertà la vivono con tutti i suoi shock.

Fairytale of New York è una ciminiera, un porto del cuore, un sussulto, con la capacità innegabile di fare della canzone un riscatto, un progetto, un ricordo, un bacio, una bevuta infinita con chilometri di battiti piovigginosi, un delirio silente nella dinamica di armonie musicali che, tra muscoli e carezze, riesce a far planare un racconto che fa del mondo tenuto segregato un paradiso dove la dignità non viene misurata con la ricchezza, la posizione sociale e l’arroganza del dominio, e in cui l’unica, discutibile, sete, è quella del potere e non quella di una sana Guinness…

Il testo fa sentire la schiuma di un’escoriazione causata da una caduta (fisica e morale), per poi disinfettare il tutto e ristabilire equilibrio e forza. Molto più di una metafora, questo episodio passa attraverso realtà, mitologia, tradizioni antiche per dare al cuore irlandese una bandiera che sventola e che sempre lo farà con una fierezza indiscutibile. Quando offre al passato la possibilità di consolare, non smette di creare il presente e nuovi ricordi, confezionando perfettamente la vera identità della terra del trifoglio.

E, quando allude al gioco d’azzardo (per poter cambiare le sorti dei protagonisti) si nota che nel baratro avanzano ancora scelte criticabili ma necessarie. Ed è apoteosi: passa attraverso una ingenuità che diventa poesia, una forma altissima di ironia, con petali amari che cadono nel cuore della vicenda… 

Quando la città della mela si mostra inospitale e crudele con chi non ha la fortuna sulle spalle, ecco che il testo sfodera un’amara constatazione che diviene, però, motivo di forza e di distinzione di un’identità che non teme di evidenziare le differenze. 

Viene voglia di spogliarsi, di andare a Dublino e dintorni, di avere un sacco di iuta vuoto e la propensione a metterci dentro i visi e le storie di chi, in questo brano, ci ha fatto piangere e sentire orgogliosi di voler raggiungere una nuova meta… 

Alex Dematteis (Vecchio Scriba)

Musicshockworld

Salford

24 12 2025

My Review : The Pogues (Featuring Kirsty MacColl) Fairytale of New York

 

The Pogues - Fairytale of New York

There are anniversaries that advance, reveal themselves, have desires, and all this would already suggest good fortune...

Then there are deeper, more attentive hearts that pass by, in silent parade, to explore those sides of existence without headlights. These are not fairy tales, poems, or even beautiful dreams, but rather the foundation of troubled relationships, where precariousness burns the skin of the heart, and more.

In those places, hardship, tears, discomfort, and anguish are an unwanted but ever-present embrace. And those who look upon them have the wisdom of judicious intimacy, in generous empathy and solidarity. Christmas has become a corrupt holiday and needs to be corrected with songs like this one, which for the Old Scribe is the only one that truly shows interest in events that are earth-shattering and which are, unfortunately, hidden under the decorations, lights and noise of people who have no respect for those who instead have a bus full of heartbreaking and complex tragedies.

But even an argument can give rise to a rainbow that illuminates the cerebral cortex with new visual perspectives.

Blessed be the narrative duet, the Irish folk melody, the suitcase and the vision of narrow, sky-less streets in New York. A piano and a keyboard are the seeds of an imaginative meadow that slowly covers the story of sweetness and melancholy, in a punk theatre inside a film, while exploring human sides that seem like bandits in search of surrender...

Epic and nostalgia take waltz steps as the band takes Shane and Kirsty and puts them face to face in the ring, in a boxing match in which no one throws in the towel until the climate knows the reason to change everything.

The song has a deadly alternation, on emotional and rational levels, as well as musical ones, which leads to reflection but only as a succession of tears, emotions and screams thrown into the wind of a drama that illuminates even those who are stingy with all of this: here is the true miracle of Christmas...

Contrasts find space in the new dreams and disappointments that the lyrics summarise, but with gentle kindness, while not lacking vulgar expressions, which are nevertheless necessary.

Sincerity in music cannot be silenced, and FONY proves this fully, without hesitation.

It all starts in a prison, with alcohol marking the breath of the protagonist (MacGowan), here with the only voice that seems to bring before our eyes one hundred litres of bitterness and dreams.

And, while listening to an old song (The Rare Old Mountain), the sadness of memory condenses, tormenting him, with the love for a woman who reappears, unleashing the ardour of a feeling that has never been dormant. The two battle, struggle, put up barriers until surrender comes thanks to his dreams, never ready to give up on the one who makes his heart beat fast and who forgets his problems and moves on.

In the self-destruction of love, there are petals and rays that move between curses and insults, but with the intention of silencing everything.

Here, the disillusionment of the American dream finds its boundaries, the limits and the sloppiness of a democracy that has caused new poverty. To solve this problem, all that remains is love, which unites.

In memories, Ireland becomes a balcony, a need for unspoilt views, where everything flows without the deception of modernity. It is no coincidence that many of its citizens went to the United States in the 1980s at the wrong time: Reagan was destroying without hindrance and the profound humanity of these new emigrants suddenly found itself facing a red light, a kick in the teeth to their dreams, suffering a series of terrible humiliations and ending up in an unimaginable cage.

In all this, the composition manages to give our vision of the events recounted in a detailed analysis of those who, in a war unseen and never highlighted, find themselves between alcohol, anger and the consolation of impossible loves...

Shane's hoarse, alienated voice, full of fog and shivers, takes us into the channels of a sensitive and therefore vulnerable mind, with wide strides into the walls of desires that he struggles to resist. In this astonishing credibility, he is accompanied by a fairy with red cheeks (like his voice) who kicks and declares war on her beloved. A duet/duel that explores the flood of differences between the singer born in Pembury and then became Irish and the girl from Croydon, transported as if by magic to a place far from their roots. The song meticulously brings everything together, spotlighting the energetic Celtic rock drive of a band that, starting from well-established historical foundations, knows how to add something new to a marriage that proves to be perfect. They dance, slowly at first (embracing) and then quickly, as if in a rowdy physical ritual that involves movement and the distribution of real sweat.

And here is the obvious opposition to Christmas, like a non-fiction book that is not contemplated but considered absolutely necessary by the artists in question. Seemingly light, the composition is a delicate surgical operation, an unexpected added value, a combination of street languages, of those who have nothing to improvise and nothing to lose...

The Pogues offer a helping hand, a blanket to make hope and the exchange of gifts a chance for enrichment, which does not pass through the mediocrity of gifts, which are only possible for those who have had fortunes and abilities that certainly do not gravitate towards those who experience poverty with all its shocks.

Fairytale of New York is a chimney, a harbour of the heart, a gasp, with the undeniable ability to turn the song into redemption, a project, a memory, a kiss, an endless drink with miles of drizzly beats, a silent delirium in the dynamics of musical harmonies which, between muscles and caresses, manages to glide through a story that makes the segregated world a paradise where dignity is not measured by wealth, social position and the arrogance of domination, and where the only, questionable thirst is that of power and not that of a healthy Guinness...

The text evokes the sting of an abrasion caused by a fall (both physical and moral), then disinfects the wound and restores balance and strength. Much more than a metaphor, this episode passes through reality, mythology and ancient traditions to give the Irish heart a flag that flies and will always fly with unquestionable pride. When it offers the past the chance to console, it never stops creating the present and new memories, perfectly encapsulating the true identity of the land of the shamrock.

And when it alludes to gambling (in order to change the protagonists' fortunes), we see that in the abyss, questionable but necessary choices still lie ahead. And it is apotheosis: it passes through a naivety that becomes poetry, a very high form of irony, with bitter petals falling into the heart of the story... 

When the city of apples shows itself to be inhospitable and cruel to those who are not lucky, the text reveals a bitter observation that becomes, however, a source of strength and distinction for an identity that is not afraid to highlight differences. 

It makes you want to strip down, go to Dublin and its surroundings, have an empty jute bag and the inclination to put in it the faces and stories of those who, in this song, made us cry and feel proud to want to reach a new goal... 

Alex Dematteis (Vecchio Scriba)

Musicshockworld

Salford

24 12 2025