If you like feeling like you’re floating, than God Celeste are definitely your kind of band. Dream away with them on their debut record, The Glow, and ride on an angelic unicorn heading straight for the sun. Well, something like that. Not content in making any ol’ kind of pop music, the Oslo-based three-piece flit between a nuance of kaleidoscope blues and dream-pop melodies. Tied to the same tapestry of band’s like Tame Impala, Temples and Sigur Rós, Gold Celeste’s sound is as bright and shiny as they come.
Moulded around tracks like the fluttery and dexterous ‘Can Of Worms’ and guitar-encumbered ‘Is This What You Can Not Do,’ the album channels your inner Norwegian hippy, so much so that you can nearly feel the grass beneath your feet. According to the band’s lead singer and bassist Simen Hallset, ‘Is This What You Could Not Do?’ describes coping with an immersive creative process, and reflects the making of the The Glow: “Our album is entirely self-produced and that makes self-criticism and fear of incapacitation inevitable. The endgame is playing this music live for an audience, and just having the time of our lives.” Their ambitions, while modest, strip back towards the true meaning of music: as a means of flourishing and having fun.
The sheer magnitude of the sound and the subtle, hypnotic beauty of the band’s own production on the record really comes out in tracks like the sweet-tempered ‘Grand New Spin.’ Poppy in essence, but grounded in the raw, psych-rock style of self-production, Gold Celeste have taken their time in developing their sound. Nurtured and deftly crafted, The Glow seeks to uncover the fragile condition of the sentiment mind. And few tracks capture that idea better than the whirlwind fanfare of ‘The Dreamers.’ Spinning off of a lavish spread of dream-pop synths and carousel chords, this slow pop song with lull you into a dream-like state. With intermittent, cosy guitar licks and a brushy percussive sound, the enigma that is Gold Celeste is summed up in the ‘The Dreamers.’
Matching the lo-fi notes and hippy-hair ballads of the 1960s and the DIY characteristics of homemade alternative-rock, Gold Celeste’s The Glow could well be indie music’s best kept secret of 2015. A record that you can really sink your teeth into and indulge without shame, The Glow is both melodically grandiose and thought provoking, with a laid-back sound that is witty, elegant, humorous and hopeful. Gold Celeste, a Norwegian three-piece made up of Simen Hallset, Petter Anderson and Eirik Fidjeland, are something a little bit special. All things considered, The Glow is a quiet and brooding masterpiece.
Release label: (Riot Factory)