After a heated debate with myself one night, I decided that the next new trend in the music industry was shrilly voices. I reached this conclusion by a very sophisticated, strictly scientific method, that is, listening to This Love by Maroon 5 on repeat until all the blood had drained from my head. To my surprise, my totally made up theory might actually be true, at least, if you count The Servant’s vocalist, Dan Black. Lucky for us, the only thing Black has in common with Adam Levine, singer for Maroon 5, is a somewhat reedy voice (I also think they’re both from England but I’m too lazy to check).

Unlike some of us, however, The Servant is not a band concerned with nasal voices and Maroon 5. With their self-titled album released in April of last year, these Brits may suddenly find themselves very popular very quickly, possibly to the annoyance of their older fans. Beautiful Thing, for example, is impossibly catchy and extremely difficult to be immune to (even though the volume at which I play it makes my ears ring at a dangerous level). It’s nicely layered, a little eccentric, and strangely breezy, much like the rest of the album. Orchestra, another great song, is a bit moodier but just as appealing. It also has Black singing even higher notes than he does in other songs, which is a plus. The only song that doesn’t stand out as much as the rest is I Can Walk in Your Mind, a poppy and cheery little track that starts out nicely but becomes a bit repetitive. It doesn’t matter, though, because Jesus Says, a delicious song with wickedly weird lyrics, makes up for it by its sheer awesomeness.

For some reason, most of the online publications I’ve read of The Servant disapprove of their name, probably because it doesn’t sound as cool as The Cooper Temple Clause or Beck. I like their name, though, because it reminds me of Christians and the crazy adventures those people get into sometimes. Ironically, a quick Internet search on The Servant leads to hundreds of Christian music sites (a genre of music that sadly isn’t given the ‘praise’ it deserves [see Delirious]).

If The Servant weren’t a band, I suppose they would be the author of demented children’s books. I have no argument with which to back this up, but the statement still stands. I suppose it’s because of their unusual lyrics, which serve as sort of an antithesis to their laid-back and light pop sound. In any case, it makes for a very interesting album.