Ela Minus DÍA
Released Jan 17, 2025 Domino Recording Co
Established consensus 6 professional reviews Updated Aug 25, 2026
Broadly positive consensus
Ela Minus's DÍA arrives as a taut, emotionally charged collection that marries handcrafted techno to candid self-examination, and critics largely agree it succeeds where production and feeling meet.
How ChoruScore worksCritics' Top Tracks
The songs critics returned to most
BROKEN
5 critic mentions
“As “Broken” achieves liftoff, Minus issues a promise: “I’ll keep writing melodies/To sing away the gloom/That we have succumbed to.” — Pitchfork
UPWARDS
4 critic mentions
“as the latter track approaches peak strobe-lit bacchanalia, Minus reiterates the impetus for DÍA : “I’d love to save you, but I’ve got to save myself first.” — Pitchfork
COMBAT
3 critic mentions
“COMBAT’, the album’s closing track, was the first album taster shared in June last year.” — Clash Music
Full critic consensus
Ela Minus's DÍA arrives as a taut, emotionally charged collection that marries handcrafted techno to candid self-examination, and critics largely agree it succeeds where production and feeling meet. Across six professional reviews the record earned a 76.17/100 consensus score, with reviewers repeatedly pointing to the album's capacity to turn trauma and personal reckoning into danceable clarity. Standout songs critics name most often include “BROKEN”, “UPWARDS”, “I WANT TO BE BETTER”, “COMBAT” and “IDOLS”, each cited for balancing club propulsion with lyrical vulnerability.
Reviewers praise the album's production craftsmanship and hypnotic techno textures - the three-song suite that contains “ONWARDS”, “AND” and “UPWARDS” is singled out as a centerpiece - while also noting a persistent tension between ecstatic dance energy and inward dread. Critics consistently highlight “BROKEN” as the emotional fulcrum, calling its arpeggiated grooves and cathartic payoff the clearest example of dance as therapy. At the same time some reviews observe that quieter or slower cuts occasionally lose momentum, making the record feel uneven even as its high points are striking.
Taken together the professional reviews form a cautious but affirmative critical consensus: DÍA is a strong, if occasionally uneven, statement of growth and self-discovery that turns inner struggle into club-ready catharsis. For those asking whether DÍA is worth listening to, the consensus score and repeated endorsement of the album's best songs suggest it merits repeated plays and rewards attention to both its production details and lyrical honesty.
Track Ratings
How critics rated each track, relative to this album (0-100). Only tracks that made critics feel something are rated.
ABRIR MONTE
BROKEN
IDOLS
IDK
QQQQ
I WANT TO BE BETTER
ONWARDS
AND
UPWARDS
COMBAT
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What Critics Are Saying
Deep insights from 7 critics who reviewed this album
Critic's Take
Ela Minus’s DÍA finds its strongest moments in honest vulnerability and immaculate production, with “COMBAT” and “BROKEN” standing out as the best tracks for their emotional directness. Jamie Wilde’s tone is admiring and measured, noting how “COMBAT” introduces the record with sombre clarity while “BROKEN” digs into suffering that had been hiding in plain sight. The three-track segue “ONWARDS”, “AND” and “UPWARDS” is praised as a production centerpiece, showing how Minus turns introspection into dancefloor heat. Overall, the album succeeds by marrying candid lyricism with meticulous, techno-infused pop production, making these the best songs on DÍA because they crystallise both feeling and sonic ambition.
Key Points
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The best song is "COMBAT" because it serves as a sombre, vulnerable introduction and emotional centerpiece.
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The album’s core strengths are its candid introspection paired with meticulous, dancefloor-ready production.
Themes
Critic's Take
Ela Minus’s DÍA finds its strongest moments in the morning-lit immediacy of “ABRIR MONTE” and the cleansing catharsis of “BROKEN”, songs that stake out the album’s best tracks with both dancefloor propulsion and emotional reckoning. Stuart Berman’s tone is admiring and exacting, praising how “I WANT TO BE BETTER” turns vulnerable confession into clapping-house intensity while the three-song suite “ONWARDS”, “AND”, “UPWARDS” maps a clear path to self-improvement. If you search for the best songs on DÍA, the record gives you pop-ready hooks that never forgo the interior work behind them. The result is an album where the best tracks balance festival-scale brightness with the hard graft of healing, making the question of the best songs on DÍA answerable by the emotional payoff of these specific cuts.
Key Points
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The best song work is where dance-pop propulsion meets emotional confession, notably on “ABRIR MONTE” and “BROKEN”.
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DÍA’s core strength is marrying festival-scale brightness with inward-looking themes of healing and self-care.
Themes
Critic's Take
In his exacting, image-rich voice Jasper Willems presents Ela Minus’s DÍA as a panoramic leap where the best songs - “COMBAT”, “BROKEN” and “IDOLS” - distill her combative, handcrafted electronic language into vivid moments. He lingers on “COMBAT” as a "gorgeous, meditative piece" that trades techno brio for stormy dissolution, and treats “BROKEN” as an arpeggiated vault between reverie and melancholy. “IDOLS” is framed as a Knife-esque, mid-tempo stomp where Minus’s voice "gasp[s] and bite[s]" through the center, proving these are the best tracks on DÍA for showing her growth as vocalist and builder. The narrative keeps Willems’s tactile metaphors and measured admiration intact while answering which are the best tracks on DÍA.
Key Points
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The best song, "COMBAT", is best because it subverts expectations with meditative, glassy textures and evocative lyricism.
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The album's core strengths are its handcrafted synth sound-design, vocal emergence, and thematic tension between freedom and confinement.
Themes
Critic's Take
On DÍA Ela Minus leans into inward motion with tracks that double as catharsis and dancefloor logic, and the best songs on the album make that tension thrilling. The hypnotic, winding techno of “BROKEN” builds and builds, a procedural triumph that proves why “BROKEN” is among the best tracks on DÍA. Elsewhere, the industrial clang of “ONWARDS” acts as a highlight, channeling defiance and blunt songwriting muscle. Intimate moments like “IDK” and “I WANT TO BE BETTER” register as earnest facets of the album's recurring self-reflection, even when she lets the pleasures of sound momentarily overshadow the message.
Key Points
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The best song, “BROKEN”, stands out for its hypnotic, slowly building techno that becomes a procedural triumph.
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DÍA's core strengths are its themes of self-reflection and growth expressed through euphoric, industrial-tinged electronic production.
Themes
Critic's Take
Ela Minus's DÍA makes its case for the best tracks as club-primed catharsis, and the review points squarely to “Upwards”, “Broken” and “I Want To Be Better”. The reviewer revels in the album's "fattest beat" and throbbing bass of “Upwards”, praises the arpeggiating synth grooves of “Broken” and calls the final minute of “I Want To Be Better” explosive. At the same time the voice notes that slower cuts misfire a little, but that the Spanish-language “QQQQ” serves as the climactic, cathartic apex. This reads like a record that wins on dancefloor immediacy even as it channels inner turmoil through club music.
Key Points
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The best song impressions hinge on dancefloor immediacy, with "Upwards" delivering the biggest beat and impact.
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The album's core strength is marrying club-ready production with personal, existential lyrics, culminating in the Spanish-language climactic track.
Themes
Critic's Take
Ela Minus frames DÍA around a handful of songs that do the heavy lifting - the bruising “IDOLS” and the emotional core “I WANT TO BE BETTER” stand out most. Jolley writes with a clear ear for how Minus turns difficult experience into propulsive club music, noting the space-shuddering hooks of “BROKEN” and the redemptive transition into “ONWARDS”. The best songs on DÍA are those that marry raw lyrics to adventurous production, and here “IDOLS”, “I WANT TO BE BETTER” and “BROKEN” emerge as the album's highlights. This is an album that is angry, difficult and energising, and its top tracks reward repeated listening.
Key Points
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The best song is the emotionally raw "I WANT TO BE BETTER" because it functions as the album's core and drives a redemptive sequence.
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The album's core strengths are frank personal lyricism married to adventurous, hook-heavy production that creates catharsis.