PlayRadioPlay

Swooping synthesized strings, throbbing bass lines, pounding drum machines and heart-on-the-sleeve vocals: PlayRadioPlay’s Texas sounds like what a sensitive, horny teenager would come up with if he were locked in the bedroom with a keyboard and a swimsuit calendar featuring the ladies of One Tree Hill.

Single-handedly created by Dan Hunter, a self-described nerdy straight-edger from Aledo, Texas will likely be piped into every mall in the country. It’s the kind of amped-up electronic dance-pop that teenagers lose their virginity to if they get hold of a bottle of Boone’s Farm and stay awake past midnight.

Opener “Loco Motion” gets the album off to a running start. Its chorus of “What’s up with these conflicting emotions?/I’m on the brink of running commotion” perfectly encapsulates the hormonal turmoil of adolescence. Things slow down with “Madi Don’t Leave,” a sweetly hopeful love song. Hunter’s impressively slick electro-bubblegum pop is perfectly suited to his anxious lyrics about boredom, hating school and teenage love. Overall, this is a very impressive debut, but it probably won’t appeal to anyone out of the fake-ID market.