Despite being 21, Aditya Majumdar isn’t one of the struggling artists who is doing his best to make it. He has already made it. Aditya, or Hulo, as his alias is, (he calls himself Hulo because his grandmother, the first person to ever encourage him called him Hulo as a kid, since he sounded like a cat) has released 2 EPs, played gigs in India, Netherlands, Singapore and Germany, and pretty much taken of like a bit of a rocket in the music world.
He says he is inspired by The Lumineers’ storytelling, and his new album Griefcase, the premise of which is beautiful, tells us just that. The album’s emotional temperature is high. The album’s opener, one of which is Hulo’s strongest till date, is radiant and wonderful, with a deep origin story: a friend in Berlin who was born deaf, gained hearing at five, and fell into music with life-altering gratitude. Light And Sound, therefore, is a reverence for sensations itself. It begins with a crystalline riff born from a Telecaster, a handful of guitar pedals, and a stroke of sonic wandering.
Again, what is beautiful about Griefcase, that Hulo is not remotely afraid to bare his skin and thoughts and share his innards to the whole world — so even though the album is largely about mental health and well… emotional baggage, it is personal. Save Your Sky revisits a pivotal rupture: dropping out of college to pursue music. Its emotional rawness is heightened by a hidden voice note from his father, a tiny family truth tucked inside a song about leaping before you’re ready. These Easter-egg elements — conversations, found sounds, room noise — give the album the feel of a lived-in diary, the aural equivalent of scribbles in the margins.
The buoyant arrangement of Golden contrasts with lyrics that hint at exhaustion, pressure, and the strain of being constantly seen. The song suggests that even a beautiful light can be blinding, and that success often carries an invisible weight. Burn is brilliant. The music turns heavier and more urgent — wider guitars, a darker pulse from the drums, and harmonies that feel close to breaking. Hulo’s vocals tighten and stretch in deliberate ways, echoing the inner turmoil of someone confronting their own limits. The production has a swelling, almost cinematic tension, capturing the sensation of being overwhelmed from the inside out.
To Be Me is a devastating song, about love lost, possibly about feeling like one is hard to love. One must appreciate Hulo for his lyricism, he sets the scene and will almost remind you that you have been in it, you have felt hard to love, possibly even if you haven’t had a failed relationship, there have been moments, where you feel like you thrown something heartbreakingly precious out of the window, for what seems to be no legitimate reason at all.
Sometimes it’s not your simple
Ballroom dance romance
(Hold on)
It’s love misguided with no chance
(I set you free)
No hopes, no dreams, they’re for believers
Faith no more when you’re leaving
People go, but lovers leave
It hurts to know I set you free
He writes like someone who has lived these feelings but also stepped slightly outside them, examining each bruise with a songwriter’s forensic tenderness.
Breathe opens with an endearing rock and roll like sound, you’ll pretty much want to swivel around it, with the mature decision of letting go being a great act, as one learns to forgive everyone they have loved, and all the hurt that has passed between the parties, realising that forgiveness will make the rest of their life easier. The guitar riff is brilliant. Hulo has said in the past, that he is a fan of Bon Jovi, and it is evident here, the riff appears to be a rarity in today’s age, where songs have Tik-Tok friendly choruses, hooks that can accompany a ten second clip and fully electronic production. His music feels real.
Don’t Love is simply vocals on piano, with a seemingly strong sense of honesty, melancholic, with yearning.
The final and titular track, Griefcase, sounds like pure joy and hope and the idea of looking forward to what is to come, with him acknowledging that his griefcase is full of pain and memories and a myriad of other things that life encompasses. It is the moment Hulo zips the metaphorical suitcase shut.In a scene where indie-pop often leans into predictable softness, Griefcase stands out for its grit and genre mobility. Hulo pulls threads from alternative rock, bedroom pop, acoustic folk, even early-2000s singer-songwriter earnestness, weaving them into something that feels contemporary without being algorithm-chasing. If he continues refining this hybrid sound, he could carve a distinct niche in India’s rapidly evolving alt sphere. Hulo leans into vulnerability with a confidence that may take years to develop. If his future work grows with the same honesty and ambition, this record will be remembered as a perfect pivotal beginning.
