Hail! The Planes are a six-piece band with core members Holly Müller, David Neale and Rob Turner songwriting collaboratively to create intricate yet unrestrained music that is both ambitious and unassuming. They are an intriguing band, drawing comparisons with Portishead, Do Make Say Think and Talk Talk, their sound expanding and changing over time, growing in complexity, gathering momentum. With the release of the EP ‘Send A Signal To Me, Love’ they emerge with a bold maturity: striking brass and string arrangements, rhythms and melodies interweaving. The band has lately been joined by Josef Prygodzicz on guitar, Francesca Dimech on trumpet and Lee Wood on bass. The new sound is multifaceted and natural, with a certain grandeur, lyrical, strong and free flowing.

H!TP have been invited to perform in session for BBC Radio 1 and have landed airplay on BBC 6 Music, XFM, BBC Radio Wales and Amazing Radio. They were selected to play at festivals such as Green Man & SWN and have also supported the likes of British Sea Power, Pinkunoizu, Islet and Sweet Baboo. H!TP have received many excitable reviews including Adam Walton of BBC Radio Wales who named H!TP’s ‘Brother’ his favourite song of 2010, saying that “Cardiff’s Hail! The Planes make sounds that resonate at exactly the same frequency as your heart”.

The band themselves appear to feel this resonance and play with a sincere intensity. They often improvise live and draw on a collective instinct borne of a long-standing musical bond. Holly and guitarist David are a couple since the band’s inception, and David and drummer Rob were childhood friends and have written and played music together since they were sixteen. The rest of H!TP must often wait patiently while the two discuss ideas for songs, communicating in a language made of half finished sentences, gestures and metaphors.

The EP ‘Send A Signal To Me, Love’ is another example of Hail! The Plane’s ability and sensitive dynamics; the frequencies are new but as affecting as ever.