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MUSICBOX
Spirit in the sky
It’s easy to get mixed up with our music industry’s taxonomy as it houses myriad artists sharing the name Ali (Ali Azmat, Ali Sher and Ali Haider to name a few) and in recent times, none of them have been able to pack quite the punch.
Ali Raza Sheikh, aka Roooh, is the latest addition to the Pakistani Punjabi music scene. However, one listen to his album Roooh makes it clear that he hardly has anything new to offer on the musical front and it’s easy to pigeonhole him along with the flock of amateurs who boast of little else but a sparse sprinkling of talent. Sheikh is best known for his collaboration on Jigga Fez’s rap-flavoured track, Neva Gonna Stop and his pepped up Punjabi chants reflected some specks of talent. On his debut album however, he fails to match the expectations put up by his duet.
The first single off the album is Ishq Awara. While the song is run-of-the-mill, the video is tagged with a different tang. Directed by Ahsan and Amena, the vid is about a mentally deranged person in an asylum who has lost his sanity in pursuit of love. Next up is Nain Shababi which, with its wild groove, is an improvement compared to his previous number. One thing one is bound to notice about Sheikh is that he sounds (or tries to sound) like Ali Azmat, but ends up carving a Punjabi caricature. Not missing the vein of a typical bhangra album, the singer plasters the essential shadi/mehndi song on the album as well.
Perhaps one thought-provoking song on an otherwise forgettable album is Kaun Sunay Ga. The song, with its strong lyrical content and surprising sincerity, should serve as Ali Sheikh’s wake up call as this is the stuff that he really needs to make. Iku Allah and Hu Allah Hu are mystical tracks but the singer sounds distant in his renditions and they don’t really blend in with the overall feel of the album. Then there is the almost too-comical-to-be true track Hum Bachay. I had actually begun to think that a few nursery rhymes would follow.
Roooh is an album that is undermined by clichéd themes and a limited sonic palette. But it might be what the doctor ordered for the rowdy adolescent crowd.—Taimur Saleem
Freedomfromchoice
Maynard James Keenan has one of the most enigmatic voices in modern rock. He used it well with progressive metal outfit Tool, yet following a fallow period with the band, the singer formed A Perfect Circle (APC) with former guitar tech Billy Howerdel. APC return with their third record eMOTIVe, a covers album (with two originals) that packs enough punch to send nu-metallers running to mother.
Keenan has played around with covers before: on Tool’s Salival box set, attempting Led Zeppelin’s masterstroke No Quarter. However, here APC has totally reworked tunes by artists as diverse as obscure punkers Crucifix to soul legend Marvin Gaye. And though previously the band played the same type of harmonic metal as Tool, this record has undeniable shades of industrial music, which results in the band finding its own sound. But the industrial influence is no accident: Howerdel has worked with Nine Inch Nails supremo Trent Reznor, as well has having written the song Passive — featured on this record — with Reznor and Keenan.
Considering it’s a collection of protest songs the dark mood is set from the word go. The ethereally sinister opener Annihilation by Crucifix is soon followed by John Lennon’s Imagine. But whereas the late ex-Beatles’ was a post-hippie utopian paean to peace, APC’s version sounds truly apocalyptic. Surprisingly, Marvin Gaye’s immortal What’s Going On is done quite soulfully, retaining its pensive mood. Black Flag’s Gimme Gimme Gimme is straight up brutal, keeping true to the hardcore punk group’s ethos.
People are People, Depeche Mode’s quasi-industrial anthem, is a downer as APC fail to do justice to the original. But things soon look up with the sludgy, dreamy gait of Devo’s Freedom of Choice. The superbly titled Counting Bodies Like Sheep to the Rhythm of the War Drums, an APC original, is truly a coupe de grace. A thoroughly industrial thrash-fest with Reznor’s stamp all over it, the tune more than holds its own amongst the strong covers. Keenan once more revisits the spirit of Zeppelin by covering their cover of Memphis Minnie’s When the Levee Breaks, done in a surreal, heavily processed soprano, resulting in the creation of a new genre I proudly dub ‘progressive smooth jazz metal.’
Keenan’s amazing voice is clearly the star here. That considered, A Perfect Circle manage to deliver a destructively delicious total package that is bound to stay in your CD players for a while.—QAM
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