Seven months is not a long amount of time, especially to get a band together, write songs, and record an album, and not even necessarily a good one.

But that's what Cordova have done, and done successfully. In seven months time, the band assembled, wrote songs, and made a damn fine twenty minutes of music. It hardly seems possible, think about how many bands you can name that have written terrible, terrible albums after being a band for three or four years. But defying convention, Lie Until It Becomes the Truth is a great effort, and a great debut from the Pennsylvania upstarts.

I'm not sure quite what I was expecting when I popped this CD into my drive, but what I got, what I got was highly rewarding. Singer James Synder is both vocally and lyrically extremely versatile, going back and forth between a powerful, soaring vocal style, to a much more quiet, entrancing one. All the while the guitars are strongly churning and driving underneath it all. "Some Killers Are Fashionable," despite the horrible song title, is the album's strongest showing.

Beginning with a soft, repetitious pounding of the drums, followed by the soft, beautiful vocals from Snyder I was referring to earlier, the song follows a very strict structure, but I'll be damned if it's not one of, or probably the catchiest songs I've heard all year. As soon as the first chorus kicks in, there is no doubt the powerful vocals and crashing guitars will have you instantly hooked, as Snyder croons "This is a lover's war" over the powerful instrumentation underneath it all. About halfway through, the bridge comes in, and guitarist Gil Resto repeats the same few progressions over and over, until Snyder comes back in, and as soon as you're completely lulled in with the softer side of his voice, the song explodes into the chorus again. That's when Cordova most impresses, when they're really firing on all cylinders, but luckily for them, they have a vocalist with terrific range and sound that will make any pace and rhythm sound better. The far quieter "The Radio Has No Soul" is the perfect way to end the album, with guitar harmonies so pristine they almost twinkle. The pace does pick up, ending just as strongly as the album started, with the words "radio, has got no soul, the radio, has got no soul" resonating in your head long after the song is over.

Just a terrific effort from the this Philly foursome, one that hopefully serves as a prelude for what this talented band could accomplish in future ventures. Worth checking out just for "Some Killers Are Fashionable," which will find a way into your subconscious, and never, ever leave.