Din Of Celestial Birds – ‘Takeoffs & Landings’

Music can often feel like a journey. The listener is taken on an emotional ride with the musicians at the helm, inviting us to reflect on our own lived experiences as their music scores the way. The fittingly titled ‘Takeoffs & Landings’ by Leeds-based instrumental post-rockers Din Of Celestial Birds charts both a physical and emotional voyage for the band. Since the release of their 2023 debut ‘The Night Is For Dreamers’, the band has taken their sound on the road with critically acclaimed appearances around the globe. During these upward career trajectories, the band has also experienced personal losses, with some of the music here written as catharsis and a tribute in the face of the most challenging experiences. Anyone who has seen them live already knows of the profoundly intimate and genuine relationship Din Of Celestial Birds has with their fans, and whilst the songs that make up ‘Takeoffs & Landings’ are written about their personal experiences, the band are keen for these tracks to be open to interpretation to the listener also. 

The title track opens the album in spectacular fashion as flickering guitar melodies are propelled along by energetic drums and a pulsating bass line, with the whole track feeling like it’s about to leave the runway and soar high above the clouds in a vast expanse of blue. It’s simultaneously life-affirming and bittersweet, the feeling of leaving something behind as you venture into uncharted territories. ‘Marmoris’ follows in similar fashion, with the graceful guitar melodies of chief songwriter Andie Gill and fellow six stringers Tom Hazelhurst and Chris Core intertwining to mesmerising effect. It’s hard to avoid the flying metaphors with an album called ‘Takeoffs & Landings”, but the songs here are filled with such soaring movement and wonder that the feeling of propelling motion is ever present. Indeed, in the album’s quieter passages, there is a sense that even when time appears to stand still, life subtly moves ever forward, like on the spacious and stirring ‘From This Summit We Can See The Heavens’, which conjures a twinkling tapestry as enormous as a starlit sky. Likewise, the epic grandeur of ‘You Are My Temple’ manages to sound both tender and colossal as subdued passages give way to galaxy-sized melodies and riffs that pack serious heft.

Elsewhere the breathtaking beauty of the second half of ‘When Suddenly…” is the most heartrending music the band have penned thus far, as plaintive pianos give way to charging drums, melancholic synths and an epic choral-like zenith that carries the listener up into the warm glow of the heavens. The affecting ‘I Hope That Road Leads You Somewhere Beautiful, Somewhere You Belong’ is another highlight. It’s a deeply personal track, penned following the tragic death of Gill’s partner Roisin in early 2025 during a time of intense grief. The song is also a beacon of light, a memorial of sorts and a reminder that those we lose shine on in the light they leave behind. The shimmering guitar melodies are heartbreakingly delicate, buoyed by sensitive synths and delicate drum patterns, adding to the track’s fragile, beguiling nature.

Huge credit goes also to producer Joe Clayton, who manages to capture the band’s full splendour in dazzling aural technicolour. The band themselves have admitted to wanting a richer sound for this album, to make use of the possibilities that the studio can provide, with synths and double tracked guitars creating a more intricate sound than we’ve heard from them before. This also is what lends the music its more cinematic feel, with Clayton making even the smallest detail visible within the radiant panorama. With ‘Takeoffs & Landings’, Din Of Celestial Birds has documented the adventures and personal odysseys that they’ve traversed over the past few years, and have entrusted us to accompany them too. But more generously, with these mesmerising songs, they’ve provided a soundtrack we can apply to our own lives; music that we can take into our hearts, to be a source of comfort in our own journeys too. 

ADAM FIRTH