Review Summary: Epic, Glorious, and Essential
Take for a second and listen, really listen. I bet you’re sitting in a room, an office, a coffeehouse. The sounds around you: silence, keyboards clattering, that new Bright Eyes album, whatever. Now imagine that those keys are fallen swords; that music isn’t there, it’s in your head, and the deafening silence actually in existence is only there because of the passing of a great tragedy - brought forth by your hands.
Imagine you just survived the greatest battle in the history of man. Yndi Halda’s debut EP, Enjoy Eternal Bliss, is that feeling.
Dark, feel the anticipation. Something’s coming; keep on waiting, swell, there’s the army, 100,000 strong. Oh. ****.
Knee deep in “Dash And Blast,” one begins to feel it. Even if it’s not a battle, something’s happening. The violins play, setting the mood for what’s to come, gradually the music swells into a grand crescendo, only to fall back and start all over.
Oh no, another post-rock band. But this is why we listen to music.
Yndi Halda picks off where “Dash and Blast” left off with “We Flood Empty Lakes,” a track which may contain the single most epic moment in post-rock history, around the 10-minute mark, the music cuts out for just a second, the listener takes a deep breath, and soon we’re back at it, at the top of the crescendo, this is the party we came for! This is where the battle metaphor comes into play; one can’t help but feel that if this was a movie, that moment is where the protagonist gets his second wind. The moment when our warrior takes the five men he has left and obliterates an army of thousands. Or maybe, true to the title, the lake falls in, rushed with water and destroying whatever lie below.
Unfortunately, “A Song For Starlit Beaches” can’t muster enough emotion to stand up to the rest of the album. The problem with this track is no that it’s unbearable, it’s not even that it’s bad, it’s just not exhilarating, it doesn’t evoke vivid memories or inspire creation or dare I say it, art.
Inspiring art is not Yndi Halda’s job; this record is art. But “A Song for Starlit Beaches” just doesn’t fit with the other three tracks. If “Dash and Blast,” “We Flood Empty Lakes,” and “Illuminate My Heart, My Darling!” invoke visions of war, “A Song For Starlit Beaches” is what’s happening back at the lead general’s house – good for the sake of curiosity but lacking the power of the battle itself.
Luckily, “Illuminate My Heart, My Darling!” brings us back into the flow of things, and just in time, too. At an hour and five minutes, this is one of the longest EPs I’ve ever heard; make no mistake, though - it’s worth every second. “Illuminate my Heart…” shows Yndi Halda pulling every trick in the post-rock bag and making it work. They pull together loud-soft, fast-slow, and the haunting violins all to bring the realization that the battle’s been won and our protagonist is victorious.
One problem, in war, no one is a winner. And at the end of this EP you’ll be left with the feeling that something must be done, something must be stopped, someone must be saved. All you have to find out now is who, what, when, where, and most importantly – why?
