Ist Ist: Dagger – album review

Ist Ist’s fifth studio album Dagger is their strongest and most complete body of work to date. Ist Ist’s fifth studio album Dagger is their strongest and most complete body of work to date. Across ten songs they deliver a set of big bold confident anthems ready-made for the biggest stages.

There’s a lot of talk recently in the press from many artists complaining about how difficult it is to make a living from the music industry – labels, promoters, PR all wanting their pound of flesh leaving little for the artist. Over the last decade Ist Ist have proved there is a way to make a go of this – self-release, partner with the right people, keep the fan base active with live releases and regular high-quality merch drops – and most importantly of course deliver music and concerts that connect. With a growing fanbase across the UK and especially Europe, they’re blazing a trail for others to follow.

Their last album Light A Bigger Fire kicked and screamed its way into the top 25 of the official chart (the real one, not the physical or sales charts others often quote in their press releases), building on the success of its predecessors Architecture, The Art Of Lying and number 41 Protagonists. Now, for the first time, there’s a sense of pressure on them to deliver something that goes further. And with Dagger they have.

Dagger starts with its lead single I Am The Fear, a big bold slab of electronic rock that laid down a marker and a statement of intent that Ist Ist know their strengths and play to them. Written during the extensive touring for Light A Bigger Fire and recorded straight after a tour, it captures the real essence of the Ist Ist experience.

The record hardly pauses for breath after that. Makes No Difference and Warning Signs possess the anthemic qualities to fill academies and arenas with hook lines that it’s almost impossible to resist, songs that barge into your conscience and refuse to budge.

Burning might lack a killer chorus, but it doesn’t need one, it possesses a restless spirit, bulldozing guitars that sound big and ambitious and which hit the mark. The Echo touches back on the electronic vibe of the opener, a soaring monster full of echoing vocals and a chorus that you can see coming a mile off but which still lifts you off your feet.

There’s a short pause for breath with a minimalist opening to Encouragement at the start of the second side of the record, but any relief is short lived when the drums kick in joined by the synths in Dagger’s most experimental moment. I Remember Everything builds momentum unstoppably into a huge chorus, a simple equation that they’ve delivered consistently across their career but each time with more power and intent.

Obligations kicks off its two minute forty one assault on the senses with a hook that comes back throughout the song to lift you off your feet, a song that feels longer than it is because, like the rest of Dagger, there’s no taking the foot off the pedal or needless noodling. Song For Someone starts slow and atmospheric, a haunting menace to Adam Houghton’s vocals, threatening to take off and explode at any point, but demonstrating Ist Ist’s ability to control the impact of their songs masterfully. Dagger finishes with Ambition, another example of their knack of crafting towering anthemic songs that grab you from the first moment and refuse to let go.

Thirty-six minutes and ten songs is all it’s taken Ist Ist to lay down their intent to continue their ascent. Many of these songs will be familiar to their live audiences, such is their confidence in the strength of their shows by releasing live versions ahead of the recorded ones. Produced by Joe Cross, these songs have been moulded to both capture the power and excitement of their live shows and the polish that’s required to break down the barriers of radio, were the playlisters inclined to consider a bunch of thirty-something Mancunians.

Dagger is an absolute triumph, their best work to date and a record that will, like its predecessors, do its own work for Ist Ist whilst scaling new heights in the charts and filling the more ambitious live rooms they’ve got planned for 2026.

Ist Ist play album release shows at Leeds Headrow House (February 7), Bury Met (8), Edinburgh The Caves (9), Nottingham Rough Trade (10), London Rough Trade East (11) before heading out on tour to Antwerp Kavka Oudaan (March 11), Cologne Luxor (12), Amsterdam Paradiso Grote Zaal (14), Frankfurt Das Bett (15), Zurich Werk 21 (16), Milan Santeria Toscana 31 (17), Budapest Durer Kert (19), Bratislava Pink Whale (20), Krakow Klub Zascianek (22), Warsaw Hydrozagadka (23), Berlin Hole 44 (24), Esbjerg Tobakken (26), Oslo Parkteatret (27), Stockholm Kollektivet (29), Hamburg Logo (31), Norwich Waterfront (April 9), London Garage (10), Exeter Phoenix (11), Oxford O2 Academy 2 (12), Newcastle The Grove (16), Glasgow Oran Mor (17), Sheffield Network (18), Nottingham Rescue Rooms (23), Bristol Thekla (24), Brighton Quarters (25), Dublin The Grand Social (28), Belfast Ulster Sports Club (29) and Manchester Albert Hall (May 1).

Ist Ist’s website can be found here and they are on Facebook and Twitter.

All words by David Brown. More from David on Louder Than War can be found here and he is also the editor of Even The Stars.