Music reviews. CD reviews. Critically hip!

My friend once described the Postal Service as technemo. Well, if the Postal Service is technemo, then Narayan is altronica -- a mix of  alternative rock and electronica. Their debut album, A King Declares Strength, features tracks with angry, raw, edgy lyrics and synth-based music. Their influences range from rock legends, such as Radiohead and U2, to rock-pop stars like Mae, to the electronica gods, Prodigy and Depeche Mode. This album was even masted by Emily Lazar, who has mastered albums by the likes of Prodigy and Garbage.

Narayan is off to a great start with an east-coast tour this summer and a tentative spot on the Vans Warped Tour. As they should be! Their music is totally and completely unique -- like alternative rock on speed,  fused with a little anger and edginess. Most of their songs are like love songs, yet the anger is there. It is subtle, but it is subtly obvious. The first five tracks kick the album off with solid, electronic beats and screaming lyrics. The band's first single, Third November," (which is also the third track) features raw and honest lyrics, like "3 am and here we are again/ Everything that mattered 
much was gone when I woke up/ It's just your picture on the wall again/ I'm choking back the tears/ You made me to cry to no avail."

Similar tracks on this album include my personal favorite, Fiction. Fiction is the ninth track, which begins with the lyrics, "Some call it love/ I call it fiction/ Call it anything you want/ It's your contradiction." The chorus elaborates on this theory: "We're victims of fiction/ We put poison in the cure/ Everything is premeditated/ everything is premeditated/ We're victims of fiction/ but gravity always wins the war."

You cannot NOT love this band, though. Seriously. Even in the midst of all the anger and tainted love songs, there is 
"Metastasis," which is a slower track -- more like Mae than Linkin Park or Radiohead. This is another sad love song, it is more  heartbreaking than angry. The lead singer, Vyom Pandit, sounds like he is singing from a distance while the music is the focus. The lyrics read, "Devil stole your brain/ and you're reduced to skin and bones/ you're breathing through a machine/ I wish I could suck the poison out." Honesty, pain, and love at its finest and rawest. Narayan is off to a great and successful start with this album, and I expect only good things from them -- there is true talent on this album and in this band.