Yndi halda, originally from deepest rural Kent, write the sort of songs that simultaneously break hearts and mend hearts. The pieces that make up debut record Enjoy Eternal Bliss are a beautiful combination of expansive orchestral indie-rock, breathtaking crescendos and gentle stillness, all indelibly permeated with the wide-eyed sweetness of youth.

Formed at age 16 by school friends James Vella, Jack Lambert, Oliver Newton, Daniel Neal and Brendan Grieve, yndi halda write songs inspired by the expansive landscape that makes up their home. At once as orchestrated and fully-formed as grand-scale classical pieces, as silencing and humble as the quietest folk confessionals and as thunderous and stirring as the most thrilling modern indie, yndi halda are informed and inspired by what moves people, and translate that influence into something that sings intimately to its listener. Live shows are grippingly, blisteringly intense; the final crescendo often seeing all the band members hurling themselves and their instruments across the stage with a heart-stopping passion, sweat dripping from foreheads and bruises being formed on playing fingers, as attested by a recent Drowned In Sound live review:

It’s difficult to describe how their music takes a hold of you…yndi halda are nothing short of mesmerising. Looking around, I’m not the only one. Some of the crowd are in what looks to be a trance, others fall victim to a tear or two and the rest simply gaze on in awe.

Enjoy Eternal Bliss (self-produced in a barn in Kent) was released worldwide on several respected indie labels in February 2007. The band toured in all of the territories that the record had a label HQ and further: UK, mainland Europe (France, Spain, Germany, Portugal, Belgium and Holland), Asia (Hong Kong, Japan, China and Taiwan) and the US, as well as playing a handful of high profile shows: Rhâââ Lovely Festival in Belgium, the Formoz Festival in Taipei (sharing a stage with Yo La Tengo and Mercury Rev among others), the Electrical Lands Festival in Paris, Musicá Urbana Festival in Portugal, headlining at the Luminaire in London, and critically-acclaimed performances at London’s world-renowned venues Barbican Hall (home to the London Symphony Orchestra and the BBC Orchestra), Union Chapel and Koko.

Formerly almost entirely instrumental, the band’s newest pieces are often heavily vocal. Harmonies and counterparts drift across a similar style of arrangement and a similar sentiment to older works, but the development of sound is obvious and exciting, genuine and earnest. Set for release on their new, currently untitled record, these new pieces are eagerly anticipated.