Aditya Kashyap - Onyx Review

by Edward Kosinsky

Aditya Kashyap’s new album Onyx is a fun amalgamation of a variety of classic indie influences. Standing at only 26 minutes the album is a no B.S., no filler, straightforward indie album, while also feeling like a complete project. Nothing was left out on this album.

The brand of rock that is presented on this album features catchy songwriting, somewhat like Catfish & the Bottlemen or The Strokes, but sounds way noisier and low-fi than those two bands. Reminiscent perhaps a little bit of Dream Pop and Shoegaze. 

Aditya Kashyap’s new album Onyx is a fun amalgamation of a variety of classic indie influences. Standing at only 26 minutes the album is a no B.S., no filler, straightforward indie album, while also feeling like a complete project. Nothing was left out on this album. The brand of rock that is presented on this album features catchy songwriting, somewhat like Catfish & the Bottlemen or The Strokes, but sounds way noisier and low-fi than those two bands. Reminiscent perhaps a little bit of Dream Pop and Shoegaze. 

The album kicks off with Day After Day which is a subtle and fairly chill opening song. Aditya sings over the hazy wall of synthesizers and far-away guitars on this song reflecting on the struggles of daily life. The album then pumps it up with Bulldog, which is much more explosive and powerful than the first track, an obvious highlight on this album. But it still retains the lyrical flavor and pained singing as the previous track. Some other obvious highlights on the album are Label Me with its killer guitar line and the closer Dharma which end the album on a noisy jam with some awesome distant guitar work.

The album won’t necessarily blow you away and the singing is a little bit raw at some points but overall this is a fun, lively rock album that clearly has a lot of great taste behind it.