CONQUEROR is like a story of the string instrument as Chandresh sees it. And his story has a number of good parts in it. For one, he is a superb guitarist and you can see that in his songs. Each of the nine tracks of the album blends into the other easily, and the mood remains the same throughout, due to which CONQUEROR can really be described as a single, nearly 38-minute guitar solo in the middle of a song, only cut into nine parts. He starts animatedly in the starting tracks, with a standard riff-in-the-background-of-solo theme, and slowly introduces calm with the use of ukulele and electronic effects that slow the rock down to mellower, softer themes.
Listening through the album, I found that songs where he has fused tempo and patch changes have fared better than the ones where he has restricted himself to just a plain solo. You have the first track CONQUEROR which has a nice, long guitar solo backed by heavy riffs in the background. Even though there is a short ukulele part in the middle, a good, solid rhythm section is lacking, which leaves the song strangely empty.
Come to FIGHTING SPIRIT and you feel the difference. Changing the guitar patch to suit the changing moods in the composition adds more levels to it and makes a hell lot of a difference in keeping the piece interesting. This track sound much better than its predecessor. The ukulele work is neat as well. The guitar work now looks more theme-based than just pure solos.
WHITE DOOR – he’s made the ukulele follow the guitar and the guitar, the ukulele. The beauty of using both of them would have lay in using them to convey two totally different themes in the same composition, but then it’s his album, and this sounds good in its own way.
Come to the softer ones on the album. EDGE OF MY EMOTIONS is a slow Post-Rock number. BLANKET OF STARS builds a beautiful theme on the nylon strings in the first half while the steel strings conjure up a fine finish in the second. I liked how the composition is simple and yet keeps you engrossed the whole time. G-UKE SONG – another one I liked for its use of varying guitar patches at appropriate places in the song. The tempo variations are smooth and it’s a light, casual track to listen to.
GOOD LIFE featuring Mattias Ia Eklundha (FREAK KITCHEN) in a guitar solo is pretty enjoyable for two reasons – one, it has a single descending bass line on which a lot of unconventional guitar solos are employed, and two, it has these strained bends on the guitar, after which the fun chorus comes back. Nice track to keep your head nodding to.
Look at CONQUEROR as a guitarist’s album and you’ll love what you hear. Look at it now as a musician’s work, and it falls short by a few notches. As I mentioned before, he’s been successful in producing good sounds; it’s just the finishing touch that I found lacking in some places. A lot of positives came off the album as well; the good tracks are really good and leave you without a trace of doubt that he is indeed a delightful guitarist.
Bottom Line
This effort might just give him an idea of his own capacities and enormous strengths as a guitarist and about how he can use them to channel his music to a higher level which I believe can and should happen in the future.
