Blends of acoustic guitar and electronic sound color sophomore Ayan Sanyal’s new album “Love Lies”. The album features four songs with a suspenseful electronic introduction that ends with the heavy breathing. This heavy breathing serves as a strong allusion to the next song on the album – “John Legend Complex”.
“John Legend Complex” starts off with acoustic chords, which give way to a strong percussion beat and keyboard chords. His vocals are light, alluding to the style of John Mayer and Jason Mraz. His whimsical style and relatable lyric make his music easy to listen to, especially since it’s a style. Ambient sound fills in the background of the song giving it an ethereal quality.
“Love Lies”, introduced by a series of organ-like chords, is more of a song about love coming to an end and what happens when love starts to lie. The piece is an interplay between heavy electronic background and acoustic guitar solos. About four minutes into the song, the style shifts to resemble that of Bon Iver with elongated vocals and slow, soft guitar plucking. The shift in the sound shows Sanyal’s versality as a musician – he truly has a knack for adopting different styles and contributing his own unique voice to them.
Serving as a strong conclusion to Sanyal’s junior album, “Hands on Fire” is an upbeat song featuring a delightful drumbeat and clean guitar chords. Unlike his previous songs, “Hands on Fire” is more of an acoustic piece, with some whistling in the end as well, ends the album on an optimistic note.
Designed by Lenny Schnier, the album artwork which features a faceless girl standing in front of a fence also caters well to the general theme of love for a girl present in Sanyal’s music.
We are truly excited to see more great things from Ayan Sanyal. “Love Lies” is available on Spotify (search Ayan Sanyal – Love Lies) or download for free at www.ayansanyal.com. Be sure to check out Sanyal’s Youtube channel as well: http://www.youtube.com/user/AyanSanyal. To see him perform live, be sure to check him out at Culture X tonight in Levin Ballroom at 7:00 PM (he’s the opening act!) or at various musical events in the area!