It’s absolutely staggering that this is David De Menezes’ debut album. It would seem that years of experience on other projects have helped David put out an eight-track debut album that sounds like an album from a veteran artist. David is a 23-year-old musician from Mumbai. Born and raised in Mumbai, David comes from a family where music was always playing. His father played the saxophone and the piano, while his mother sang. Over the years David has collaborated on multiple releases, contributing violins and bass for projects. He offers eight of his best songs out of the 20 he wrote between April and July, 2021.

Speaking about this album, David says, “The Second Wave is alt-indie with glimpses of pop with a fair share of experimental music, resonating with the kind of material that I listen to.” Titled The Second Wave for metaphorical reasons – his sister had COVID; the album was born when he gathered his equipment and spent time alone in a neighbor’s flat making music and exploring how loneliness can be meditative. The album is witness to his new sense of self and self-acceptance.

 “This album came out of some dark times,” he says. “It signifies a big step for me personally as accepting myself and having the self-confidence to call myself an artist and take myself seriously.” The lyrics of the songs deal with death, heartache and yearning. David says, “I really enjoyed the process of recording and mixing these songs at home and at The True School of Music where I am currently studying Sound Engineering. I play all the instruments on the record except the drums for ‘I Know’ and ‘Mid Mon’ which feature indie-folk veteran Rounak Maiti.”

The album opens with a quiet beat for “Going Somewhere idk.” The opening track features distorted vocals, clean-yet-dirty guitars, soothing basslines and a few other layers. The gritty, raw quality on the songs for The Second Wave work extremely well in favor of the mood and setting of the album. The experimental side on The Second Wave leads to some interesting choices on almost every track. For example, while the second track “Day Date” largely follows the musical style of the opener, the last two minutes of the song descend into utter chaos that is wonderful to listen to. “Volca Beats” goes in a different direction with a nursery-rhyme-sounding self-affirmative mantra on the vocals accompanied with a hypnotizingly repetitive bassline and soft notes on a clean-toned guitar. The album takes a small break midway at “Interlude”, a six-minute-long modular synth song. The tracks on the second half of The Second Wave have a slight sonic shift in terms of the instrumentation and tones, while largely carrying forward the theme from the first half of the album. “Imposter Syndrome”, “I Know”, “Mid Mon” and “My Girl” feature more of an acoustic-indie ballad-like feel to them, and each one of these songs is a top-notch musical piece (“Imposter Syndrome” is now a personal favorite and currently on loop.)

The Second Wave is a refreshing change in pace and sound that has become entrenched in the indie-pop scene. This album truly marks the arrival of David De Menezes as a talented artist of the Indian indie music scene, and hopefully, he continues to experiment where his sound and style can take him in the future.

Listen to the album here.