Members of the band The Information, from left, are: Deb Grant (guitar), Max Fresen (vocals), Ashley Moody (keyboard), Heath Fradkoff (bass), Brad Kayal (drums), and Zach Wells (guitar). (Globe Staff Photo / Dina Rudick)

When singer and songwriter Max Fresen moved to Boston from Tallahassee four years ago, he left behind his shoe-gazer band and any hope that he would ever make money making music. Destiny intervened in the form of guitarist Zack Wells, the first person Fresen met in Boston. The two formed the Information -- a synth-stoked, guitar-addled, high-voltage modern-rock sextet that's been charmed from the start .

"Our very first show was at Charlie's [in Cambridge], with Low Beam and the Signal, and it was sold out. Our next show was at the Middle East, and then T.T.'s. We got some good press, and from there it's just snowballed," says Fresen (below, second from left). "I didn't know a soul in the local scene. We were totally anonymous. I was gonna be a Web-designer guy. Now we're the trust-fund babies of the rock world."

Just because the Information hasn't struggled up through the ranks doesn't mean it doesn't deserve the accolades: The band's debut album, "Mistakes We Knew We Were Making," out on Cambridge-based Primary Voltage records on Feb. 1, is stellar. The group will celebrate with a CD-release show at the Paradise on Feb. 9. Meanwhile, the disc -- a dark, visceral collection of rock tunes you can dance to -- is already generating the sort of buzz that most bands only dream of.

"We have quite a bit of interest from the labels," Fresen says. "We're getting e-mails on a daily or weekly basis from all the majors and subsidiaries asking for copies. We're on some sort of radar and I don't even really know why. I imagine there's credit due to some of the friends we've made here, like Paul Driscoll [music director] at WFNX, who are evangelists."

Meanwhile, the Information continues to buff its club show, a sleek, incendiary blast with a minimum of the posturing that so many of its peers confuse with stage presence.

"There is no premeditation," says Fresen, "and I hope that sincerity imparts itself in the music. I hope it lends an edge to the songs that will make them endure."

LENGTH OF TIME PLAYING TOGETHER: Two years. MUSICAL INFLUENCES: New Order, the Stooges. WHO THEY THINK THEY SOUND LIKE: "We get compared to bands like Interpol, and while they probably have the same records in their collection, I don't think we really sound like any other bands right now," says Fresen. "Philosophically, I think we line up pretty closely with the Strokes. They play music and have a good time." THEY'LL KNOW THEY'VE MADE IT WHEN: "We can eat food and pay our bills as members of the Information." QUIRKY FACT ABOUT THE BAND: "I'm the tallest guy and I'm 5-foot-11," says Fresen. "Everyone else is Lilliputian."

- JOAN ANDERMAN