The Lightyears Explode

Winners of this year’s Channel V Launchpad, this Mumbai-based punk trio of Saurabh Roy (guitars/vocals), Shalom Benjamin (bass) and Aaron Caravlho (drums) makes a decent first impression with its debut EP. The five tracks channel varied punk influences, worked over with a fashionably callous swagger, characteristic of the breed of Brit indie-rock outfits, like the Arctic Monkeys (on Whatever People Say I Am I Am Not). Equal parts pop-punk (”˜The Gay Song,’ ”˜She Probably Still Is’) cloaked in frolicsome licks and garage punk (”˜Pretenses and Other Forms of Fakegiri,’ ”˜The Weapon’), the tracks are dressed in wicked-gnarly guitar lines, fuzzed up distortion, screechy solos and power drumming – the outfit works influences from across the genre into this record. The Lightyears Explode pick on the lyrical cheek of Blink 182 and the Offspring but occasionally slip into mediocrity. With a taste for crass funnies and a melodic temperament the band tends towards the casually flippant, moderately brutal and inoffensive pop-punk drill.

Key Tracks: ”˜Pretenses and Other Forms of Fakegiri’, ”˜She Probably Still Is’