ENJOY ETERNAL BLISS

Except for one other demo album, this is so far the only album from this band. Coming from the UK, this band created this album when they were going to school, so I guess you could say it's a boy band. But you won't see them in any boy band circles for sure. They are a far cry from anything commercial. They are definitely a post rock band along the likes of Mono more than anything. You could even call them "GY!BE-lite". And I mean lite as in heavy-lite, not dark-light.

Unfortunately, that is where their fault lies. The reason that GY!BE is such an outstanding band and Yndi Halda is just a good band is because YH does not deviate much from the typical well- worn pattern that post rock is famous for where GY!BE is so much more dynamic and use a lot more variation in that pattern, they are not afraid to use variation of that formula. YH take the typical post-rock pattern of starting out soft and quiet and meandering along on a slow cresecendo until they reach a climax, usually repeating that pattern one more time with a slight variation in melody and then they call that a complete song. This pattern repeats itself 4 times on this album, the shortest time is just over 10 minutes and the longest close to 20 minutes, so they take their time as you can see to explore that pattern.

The third track "A Song for Starlit Beaches", was apparently added to the E.P. for the 2006 international re-issue of the album to make it more album length even though it is still considered an E.P. (although this makes the playing time at 65 minutes). This in my opinion, is the best track. It still follows the same pattern, but has a more discernible and beautiful melody, plus a few extra instruments are added in like a banjo and piano. There is a short vocal section also. The additional instruments are too underutilized however and if you are not paying close attention, the track pretty much ends up sounding a lot the same. But if there is a standout, this is it.

No doubt that there is some beauty in their melodies that are usually played by the solo violin and the slow churning songs, but the pattern does get old after the first 20 minutes of the album, and it gets frustrating when you come to the understanding that it isn't going to change too much. Granted, this was their first official recording, so I should be giving some slack here. It would be nice to see if they can expand on the sound they have established. But from what I have been reading about the band, they have talked about a follow up album for a few years now, and in 2014, they finally were reportedly back in the studio, but they have commented that their style has changed to focusing on acoustic instruments with more vocals. This could be good or bad, depending on just how far they go in attempting to popularize their sound. As of yet, that remains to be seen.

So, we have a decent post-rock album that does not break any mold or tradition. You can hear this same pattern with some variation in earlier Mono and Mogwai recordings, but both bands have continued to expand on this pattern. GY!BE has also far surpassed this pattern, even in their first official album. For these reasons, and for the fact that there just isn't enough variation in the pattern throughout this album, I can only call it a non-essential album. No doubt, if the band had continued to explore the genre, they would have probably been producing much better music by now. If you are a post-rock lover and you don't mind any deviation from the well-known post-rock pattern, then this is for you. It does work well as background music, but otherwise can be hard to listen too because of it's lack of variety and ingenuity. 3 stars.