After spending the last few years planning their assault on the rock scene, in 2021 we finally saw the release of Rebel Music, the debut album from hotly tipped contemporary rockers Indya.
The brain child of Laudez Rose, a former BRIT School sensation, Indya combines cutting edge, modern and current sounds with the visceral power and energy of classic rock and roll. Her beginnings in performing arts may have stood her in good stead for a career onstage, but Laudez soon realised that her talents were better suited away from the more conservative world of theatre and in 2015 she left musical theatre behind to concentrate on Indya.
Indya was born from Laudez‘s love of rock and roll, distorted guitars and heavy sounds. Her influences range from legendary stadium-filling artists like Fleetwood Mac and Led Zeppelin, to groundbreaking and empowering female artists such as Madonna and Joan Jet, to Prince in all of his genre-hopping, eclectic glory. Indya made such an immediate impression that their first show was supporting Noel Gallagher’s High-Flying Birds, but it hasn’t all come easy to the band, with lineup changes destabilising their progress, leading to the lengthy gap before this debut album.
Over the years Indya continued to gig relentlessly and release a series of incredibly well received singles and EPs, before Rebel Music was released on November 7 2021. The album features 15 tracks and finally fans can hear a perfectly-captured version of all of Indya’s various influences, from the anthemic chorus and beats of opening track Sadness, to the instantaneous industrial pop-rock of Love Like Champagne, the pounding garage punk of Insane Love or the soaring acoustic led ballad Rewind Love. Rebel Music is a dynamic rollercoaster of a journey.
The good news for fans who have waited this long for a full album of material from Indya, is that, unlike the wait between their inception and Rebel Music, it seems that a second album may well be coming along in the not-too-distant future. Clearly buoyed by the experience of creating this album, the band have returned to the studio to write and record more new material, with Laudez promising that Indya 2022 will deliver a “Whole new album with a fresh, new, urban, cutting-edge sound.”
For now though, fans of all genres of rock, from glam to ska, punk to metal, would have to consider Indya’s Rebel Music essential listening.
Video credit: Alfie Burton
