The album to buy this season

The album to buy this season

Machine Head logo courtsey: machinehead1.com

Anyone who has given at least a passive listen to machine head’s 2004 release ‘through the ashes of the empire’ would have seen this coming. An album that is so massive that music lovers across the planet have already placed it at that particular shelf reserved exclusively for such master albums as metallica’s ‘master of puppets’.

For those yet without a clue, I am talking about ‘the blackening’, machine head’s latest outing, and I seriously doubt anything of this proportion is in the offing anytime soon. ‘Clenching the fists of descent’ puts you right in the mood for the rest. The opening 5 seconds itself makes you guess that its gonna be far more than what u bargained for. Songs like ‘aesthetics of hate’ and ‘now I lay thee down’ blends to perfection melodious singing with some of the heaviest guitar riffs ever heard on a rock album.

The Blackening image courtsey: machinehead1.com

‘Halo’ is the one that’s really mammoth. Clocking in at 10 minutes this track take you on a ride that would put many a roller coaster ride to shame. Just when you think that this is the highest point to be, the best song of the album that the heads have saved till the last, comes on. ‘Farewell to arms’ is a metal classic if ever there was one. Again, a 10 minute song, the first half of the classic features some atmospheric singing along with brutally hefty stringworks, the song almost comes to a halt at the midpoint and then Rob Flynn gives a solid metal croon going ‘is this how we live, and is this how we die..’. Then comes that point in the song and the album that sends you straight to the upper echelons of metal heaven. Solid, brutal and honest. And oh, the lyrics kicks too.

All said and done, there is only one advice for me to give you guys. Buy it, steal it, kill someone and get their copy, do something anything but make sure that you own a copy of this album. And incidentally those who like this album can do themselves further good by having iron maiden’s ‘a matter of life and death’ as well.

Peace!

The great Indian rock scenario

Those looking for stone details of khajuraho can leave at ease since its not that kinda rock I have in mind. The rock here refers to head bang, nose bleed, cruel attitudes and more. Set population is in India supporting everything from ‘disturbed’ to ‘motley crue’ to ‘beatles’ and the ghost of John Lennon. One thing all these bands share is the fact that none of them are Indian.

The reason for absence of Indian hellraisers in the wishlist of rock n’ roll lovers in India is a subject topical enough to be made a thesis paper and submitted in the university, obviously that’s for the educative types and so I wont go into that. But if any of you are missing out on Indian bands because you have a feeling that no good bands exist in India, you certainly need to read the following.

Magdalene is a band from Aizwal and they raise hell, satan and satan’s mother all together. Belonging to the heavy side of things, they are heavycool.

Nakshathra offers dishes fit for any self respecting nu-metal fan. The cuts are a bit too far from perfection sometimes but they certainly have the energy and with each song they swear that they’ll keep getting better.

Demonic Resurrection started out basically as a sort of prank or maybe we took them to be a prank initially, but as time bid by they became what they claim to be- demonic. This band from Mumbai is the talk and reason for nosebleed and broken arms wherever they perform nowadays, most probably due to the lead singer whose performance is nothing short of nothing to compare with.

Soulmate, a two member band which concentrates on classic rock mostly is beyond my capacity to describe. Suffice to say that they are my favorite Indians since silk smitha.

Mother Jane is a band from what everyone calls god’s own country and which I vouch for, has been around for sometime now and they are absolutely professionally cool.

Split – better attitudes have been seen but as far as the songs go, the lead singer justifies his attitude that earns them five fans and ten enemies any given second.

Parikrama, one of the most longstanding Indian bands, they are way past the tried and tested stage now and are ripe for international fame.

Pentagram, I am sure their fame has already reached your ears. If not, listen to their songs and you will know what I am talking about.

Bhayanak mauth, a fun band. What more shall I say, the name is self explanatory.

For the uninitiated, the abovementioned list would be a good starting point. I’ve given here only those bands that I consider to be the best in India but my judgment may severely have been affected by the varying states of soberness that I listened to the songs in,but it’s a safe list and listening to one band will lead to another . Most of these bands can be caught in myspace.com. Happy listening.

Peace!

The serpent and the snake

One thing we all must agree to is that rock bands certainly do have a way with their names. I mean, come to think of it who would listen to some snake hissing for 20 minutes unless it’s by the rock band named ‘whitesnake’? I for one would have passed out and reached the right side of jesus on hearing a snake hiss for fraction of a sec. So naturally the only snake I like is whitesnake.

Formed by deep purple david coverdale not necessarily in response to comrade richie blackmore’s formation of ‘rainbow’, what was most interesting about whitesnake is that their early songs were mostly covers of famous blues numbers. And it was this blue streak indeed that gave the snakes their first accord. A beautiful cover of bobby bland’s ‘aint no love in the heart of the city’ made it done for them. Early albums featured such blues along with some singles earlier featured in coverdale’s solo albums.

Being formed in 1977, the band certainly became emboldened with the glam rock scenario of the 80s and the whitesnake’s albums became much rockier and their antics..much crazier with all the glam elements present including protruding crotches.

Despite of that a list of famous musicians long enough to stretch from lal kila to the WTC or whats left of it joined the snakes as guest musicians. The list includes jon lord who is one of my favourites. So at least due to sympathy for me, listen to snake songs featuring lord, awright?

For those who wanna get snake bitten , my recommendations are the albums ‘trouble’( featuring jon lord) and ‘ready an’ willing’. After that u r in eden.

Peace!

The name is Floyd…Pink Floyd

The tag line I took from James bond so that everything will look cool and all but if ever
the guys who make up the entity that is Pink Floyd happen upon this blog, they would kick me right out of the globe seeing this err.. tag line. Not to worry ‘cause I am the sorta person who would rather get whipped by roger waters than get blessed by my ma, pa and the local and global church authorities all combined together. But that’s just me and thisis not about moi but about moi band ‘pink floyd’.

To call Floyd a rock band would be somehow demeaning though they are the psychedelic rock pioneers indeed. What with everyone and anyone with a bass, drums and a bad throat being called rock bands these days, floyd should be called something else,something like psychetrip band?

Syd barret. That’s who started it all. Syd along with roger waters, nick mason and rick wright kicked some sweet and sour asses in the early hippie era. The band was officially formulated in the year 19blah blah blah. Who gives a damn when it was formed? Just dig the music dude!

Anyways, for all those serious types out there, I would provide this information- syd barret became a nervous wreck around the time floyd’s second album ‘saucerful of secrets’ came out. That’s how and when david gilmour got on the bus and syd got out.

Later on while recording ‘wish you were here’ which was a dedication album to barret,syd himself walked into the studio and surprised the gang. And that’s rock legend now.Popularly ‘dark side of moon’, ‘wish you were here’ and ‘the wall’ are considered to be floyd streakphase with those albums still being the hot sellers. Describing floyd’s music requires a decent amount of hash and marijuana in your body and you should also be out of your mind. There, that describes their music. Down to the last note.

After ‘the final cut’ which is a terrifically brilliant but terribly underrated album which some rock people even consider to be a roger waters solo album which it certainly is not ‘pink floyd’ split up. After a dick churning legal heist the new ‘pink floyd’ was formed minus roger watersand roger waters became roger waters! My my, aint that a shame.

Floyd continued their success even after losing their front man roger with two albums‘momentary lapse of reason’ and ‘the division bell’. Both real cool albums. Okay, we miss roger’s bass screaming and also his throaty voice now and then. But these two last albums have stunned our consciousness with such songs as ‘sorrow’, ‘the new machine’ and ‘high hopes’.

In addition to their original albums, in their roger waters era floyd had also composed music and songs for two movies by the French director barbet schoeder. ‘More’ and‘Obscured by clouds’ are the results.

Now I want to tell ya that a lot of really really unbelievable things happen in this world everyday and among them are people who have never heard floyd yet. Such unbelievable things we certainly don’t want, do we? There is an adage in the rock circle that buying floyd albums is the music equivalent of buying gold, which is quite true. You can pass it over to the next generation unless of course if you have brought the tapes and not the cds. Tapes don’t last that long.

And my personal adage is that floyd is the only band of which I can say without being persuaded with booze or d-matter that I love all of their songs. No matter which floyd song you are listening to, you are having the psychetrip of your life.

Peace!

Radiohead-rise rise ears!

Screw the encyclopedias! There do exist such things as musicbuds, just like tastebuds reside on the tongue, the musicbuds are found inside those beautiful human organs called the ears through which we perceive slothing from guns n’ roses and super slothing from our bosses at work.

What I am driving at is that the musicbuds do need refreshments just as tastebuds need be stimulated using chick food. As any self respecting rock n’ roll fan would be my witness rock musicians of late have neglected the musicbuds of their dearly beloved audience.’Of late’, for some began right after the glam rock era and for others after the ascension to heaven of kurt Cobain in a bikini. Whatever be the precise time, the rock lover’s musicbuds have long since gone to a not by any means sweet slumber.

As we plead for someone or something to come and rise our dearly departed musicbuds, we can instead do the right thing by listening to ‘radiohead’. Arguably the greatest contemporary rock band. Listening to Radiohead is part fun and part superfun. And for those who likes ‘serious’ music, I would say this much-good luck boss!

Though shot to super rockstardom by their album ‘ok computer’ which also won them a coupla awards(read grammy) my favourite radiohead album is ‘kid a’ closely followed by ‘hail to the thief ’. ‘the bends’ , ‘ok computer’, ‘ amnesiac’ , those are all more than neat albums to own as well. Each radiohead song offers u a portal into another world which is much more real than this maya ridden world in which we reside in, though I do like the maya of root beer, and in the radiohead world root beer is free. What I mean to say is, their music is cool.

In India at least, radiohead is a terribly underrated and under listened band though they are popular elsewhere. Instead of ruining ur sensibilities and time listening to the girl with spears protruding out of her breasts or to the shack-era, both of whom actually offers far more to the eyes than to the ears, forget musicbuds dude!, just lay back and enter radiohead and see for urself how the simple sound of ‘bleep bleep blaap’ can reveal to you everything you ever wanted to know about your dearly beloved spouse.

And oh, I recently attented a funeral. That’s why the ‘dearly beloved..’ bit.

Peace!