ENJOY ETERNAL BLISS

Yndi Halda, a quintet hailing from the capitol of prog rock itself! This band is a mixture of the happy clean guitars of Explosions in the sky, combined with the epicness of Godspeed, and a little bit of Mogwai-ish grooves thrown into blender, and served with chips that take anywhere between ten and twenty minutes to eat. The music is happy, straight forward, and without any melancholics completely. You're probably asking yourself is this really post rock? Why yes, yes it is. And though I am a fan of the happier more prettier side of post rock as well as the darker stuff, this one is not without flaws.

There are four songs on this ermm... hour long EP(?). All of them built on the GY!BEian climax, strings build to guitar arpeggios, guitar arpeggios bring in full band, full band starts playing louder faster, guitars get crunchier, drums fill more, and the strings slowly get faded out. A little too typical if you were to ask me. This group will switch it up every once in awhile, they wont go into seemingly pointless ambient sections, or go into a monologue about how some guy profocises the future. No this band is all about the music, there is always a lead guitar playing somewhere, a violin sifting through the gentle music, and even a drum beat throughout most of the time. Of course too much is too much, I wouldn't mind a little of the ambiance or a monologue thrown in there, cause honestly, there are points of monotony, especially in the longer songs. It's just extremely hard for me to keep up with these epic bands, when there isn't a little diversity to cut through the layers and layers of sweet harmonious guitars.

The first two songs are the best IMO, they keep most of my interest, and they remind me of pg.lost if they were to extend their songs a little longer: Climactic, happy, beautiful. Filled with the delayed clean distorted guitar which will never get old as long as there is good post rock going around. The next half of the album does get a bit darker and experimental, throwing in some piano, banjo, horns, and even some vocals. The songs are way too long though, if the third song, A song for starlit beaches were to be cut into two songs, I would be much happier, and the album would flow a little more, but this twenty minute epic just seems to drag with me, and even the the climaxis climactic, and the epicocity at it's peak, the song is just too long. The last song definitely holds the biggest GY!BE influence, with a semi darkish feel, and somewhat technical drumming thrown in there, you actually do feel a sense of diversity thrown in there, but still I feel this song just meanders a bit, and just flows into wherever it want. When Kayo Dot does that I like it, when Yndi Halda tries it, it's not the same.

Really this is a pretty solid... EP(?), all the songs have some excellent tear jerking moments, but I cant bring myself to give this EP(?) a four star rating. They may be drawing on their influences a bit too much, or maybe they just get too lost in their compositions, and get carried away. Either way, I'm sad to say that I doubt Yndi Halda will be pumping out anymore quality material, on their myspace, they say evil things like we no longer shun pop music, we made our first record when we were children, and we are no longer instrumental. I predict the future of this band will be grim. As for their first EP (?), three stars.