Reviews
Reviews (100)
One thing very noticeable about INDIAN OCEAN is the extremity of its fans. The fans who love them absolutely worship the band, while those who don’t will not be found changing sides. There is a certain ‘feel’ that is associated to INDIAN OCEAN, something that was missing in popular Indian music before, something that they brought to our notice, and that they have continued doing all these years. You cannot be unsure of whether you like INDIAN OCEAN “sometimes” or only on “some of their songs”. Once an INDIAN OCEAN fan is always a fan. And even when you’re a fan, it takes time getting used to and liking their sound, but you eventually do. It is important to start this review with India’s oldest and probably only Fusion Rock band, because that is where it began, after all, for its lead guitarist Susmit Sen, as he adds another feather to his cap with his debut solo effort DEPTHS OF THE OCEAN.
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Anoushka Shankar, daughter of the great sitar maestro Pandit Ravi Shankar, has with her new album given herself a new direction and expanded her horizons. One could argue that music is in her blood and therefore she grasps more attention because of her lineage rather than her music but her experimentation with her genre, especially in TRAVELLER, does to some extent prove that perhaps her intentions are to create an identity for herself rather than step into the shoes of her father. As is the case with many children of established classical musicians, they tend to be overshadowed by the monumental achievements and talent of their parents and cannot properly fill the void that they seem to be confronted with.
The first thing that I felt when I completed my 6th listen of this wonderful E.P is - if these guys come up with a full length album like this - I will have to hire someone to tell me to 'stop" listening to them and do my daily chores!
It takes a while to write about an evening that had "Old Monk" on the house accompanied with an extreme dosage of wonderful music. Even more so when you throw in the company of those who have made the music that not only gets your head into motion, but touches your soul too. The combination being, undoubtedly deadly, the hangover takes a long time to wear off.
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A successful relationship between great production and great musicianship is very rare. Even most of the top-league bands mess it up with being too bassy on the albums or transitions being weak. It is not an unknown fact that an album with a strong production value gets more appeal even if there are greater rival albums but with tacky production background. PROVIDENCE is a beaming example of how a bunch of talented musicians grab an equally competent producer/mixing engineer and churn out a winner. The reason I'm stressing on the production value is because the amount of Indian Metal/Rock I have been subjected too lately lacks badly in terms of production value. Bands do have to face financial hurdles when they are in their early stages and access to good studios in developing countries can be a problem, but it is certainly no excuse to let your musical talent be scorned at just because it is not good on the ear. The situation is definitely changing with more and more Indian bands reaching out to better studios (even international) and PROVIDENCE achieves their crisp sound from SKYHARBOR’s acclaimed musician and india’s first "Djentleman" – Keshav Dhar who has mixed/produced their EP.
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