Moderate Rock

There’s a ghost in the room. It’s the spirit of Yndi Halda’s first album, ‘Enjoy Eternal Bliss’. That record, released almost a decade ago now, arrived to little fanfare but eventually you couldn’t have a conversation about the British post-rock scene without someone mentioning it. It wasn’t perfect but there was something special there, a handmade, experimental, exceptional quality. So much time has passed that it almost seems unfair to bring it up except that ‘Enjoy Eternal Bliss’ still lingers, a spirit, almost a legend. But ‘Until Summer’ doesn’t care. This is as carefree a record as you’ll hear all year. That doesn’t mean that it’s lazy- this thing is clearly so carefully constructed, practiced and performed- but that it’s elegantly untroubled, unhooked from any scene, and wonderfully calm, cool and composed. There’s the soft vocals just 30 seconds into ‘Together Those Leaves’ like a message direct from the band that things have changed, the warm chorus in the middle there too, and the enticing, transitional silences of ‘Helena’. It’s all less cinematic than before but it’s mature and mellow and oh so special. If the Brighton band felt any hint of pressure during the creation of this record you absolutely cannot hear it. Instead you can make out defiant creativity, expressive abandon and a new, sturdy spirit.