Devin Townsend - Ghost

There are musicians and there are truckloads of them. They create music, acquire a fan base(small or large), and create more music to divide the fan base into the "old school" and the "open minded".

And every once in a while, a musician walks on the planet who is extra ordinary and sets the bar so high for his/her peers which is difficult to scale.

Devin Townsend is one such musician and Ghost is the flag that he has put on top of the mountain he has created and scaled with his career prior to before.

Ghost is not heavy. Ghost is not about the riffs. Ghost is not about the bass lines. Ghost isn't about the humour that Devin so delicately blends with metal.

What Ghost does is take to you to another world and keeps you there throughout the 70 odd minutes. And if that world had anything to do with Ghosts, they are friendly and sing soothing numbers to you. The different layers on the tracks blend really well and create the atmosphere which can soothe a disturbed soul in minutes and make it stay in that state for a long while.

There are flavours of folk and country music(I felt so) which gives the album an entirely different feel from the rest of the albums from Townsend's catalogue. This is definitely one of the better albums that anyone will come across. Ghost is a pinnacle in musicianship that will require a great amount of effort to better.

Amplifier - The Octopus - Review Part II

Disc II continues from where Disc I left off. Especially in terms of the awesomeness. There are plenty of brilliant moments. The Sick Rose reminded me of Porcupine Tree, especially the opening section. The drumming could have had a bit more texture to it, but that doesn't mean it was sloppy.

Interstellar starts with an 8-bit video game like intro which moves into something really heavy and settles into a catchy pattern reminding us that they are a 3-piece band at work, with occasional multi layer chunks thrown in. The 10 minute track has the pattern going on for a while before a superb transition takes the song in a different direction. Once again, the vocals shine through. The way the song ends with a once again smooth transition to a slow outro is simply brilliant.

Emperor again had elements of Tool during the intro. However, the band members get into their elements and render a silky pop rock track. The album achieves its Golden Ratio with some sweet guitars and and a perfect mix of instruments, length and music. This is certainly the high point of the album for me.

The start-stop nature of Fall of the Empire brings out the groovy side of the guys while Bloodtest builds an old world ambience. I was able to relate to Oscar Night/Embryo, being an individual who isn't much into movies. The strange part was the cinematic style outro, which I found a bit ironic.

The album ends with Forever and More, which begins in a frenzy and builds an atmosphere from which you don't want to leave. All the band members shine on this one, just the way most bands end a gig. It also leaves you wanting more, even though you have crossed two discs to get to this point, which I think makes this work, a master piece.

Amplifier - The Octopus - Review Part I

I don't know where I heard about Amplifier and the album The Octopus, but I decided to check it out once I heard some rave reviews about it. It is supposedly by a 3 member act, but The Octopus sounds like it was created with help from a million musicians. The amount of detail present in the album is similar to that present in some of the master piece works of our times, which have come out after years of writing, recording, sampling and editing. The Octopus is an epic in the truest sense, being a two-disc album, along the lines of Floyd's The Wall. 


Since I haven't had the time to have a go at both the discs together, I'll do a two part review of the album, this being part-I (obviously, duh!).


The disc has full of fantastic moments. The Runner is a cinematic track which provides a brilliant opening for the album. Personally, I felt that the track could have been shorter, but it serves its purpose very well and leaves us waiting to find out what the album has in store for us. Amplifier, the band, as story tellers is what Minion is all about. The punk sounds towards the 3 minute mark, the operatic chorus and the way a frenzy is built towards the end is testimony of their wonderful song writing capabilities.


Heavy metal lovers would love Interglacial Spell. It has elements of heavy metal with heaviness in vocals and a galloping riff. The solo blends perfectly with the mood and the wailing guitars add a beauty, which I'm struggling to put into words. I found resemblances to Tool with The Wave. It's a mix of doom and punk rock and if you thought that would be like oil and water, you are shown that it's something like rum and coke.

The title track is a thing of beauty. That something of this sort could be created step by step has been proved time and again by musicians and Amplifier just show us that they are right there at the top when it comes to such creations. I liked the song a lot more because I found an Opethian influence in the track. Planet of the Insects has a catchy riff. It is not the best song on this album IMHO. White Horses At Sea/Utopian Daydream creates an ideal world with some delicious music, however, they also tell us how painful Utopia is, if you go by the tone of the track.


The album ends with Trading Dark Matter on the Stock Exchange. The lovely mid section and a doom like atmosphere gives an end to a wonderful disc, making you want more in the second disc.


It's one thing to make music. It's another thing to make beautiful music. I think Amplifier have put out a brilliant record, which I'm sure am going to love more with subsequent listens.

The Song Remains the Same

I was browsing through my DVD catalogue this morning and decided to go on a Pink Floyd trip. (sorry to disappoint you with the title, which is a Led Zeppelin concert film's title.) As the track High Hopes started playing, I time travelled a few years into the past. I was bed ridden, with a very high fever and an infection on my thigh which needed medical help to get rid of it.

High Hopes was that track which acted as the pain killer at that point of time. I remember vividly, the first time I listened to the track. I immediately fell in love. It was around that time that VH1 had entered the Indian satellite TV scene and on one of the mornings, they aired the track. I fell in love with the video too.

Another of those instances is when I listened to Master of Puppets for the first time on my newly acquired 2.1 system(which I eventually sold off due to logistics issues and regret the move now). I remember increasing the volume to glass shattering levels and jumping up and down on the bed. I never looked at Master of Puppets as just another song.


Fast forward a few months, I was at the canteen in college where a guy I knew was fiddling around with his acoustic guitar. He was playing a very good tune and I learnt that he was playing Harvest by Opeth. I asked for a few track suggestions and ended up worshipping the band.

I decided to give Ride the Lightning a listen on a rainy evening, when I was at home for a vacation. It was love at first listen. Fade to Black caught my imagination like no other song did at that time. I was in love with Metallica.


Most of the times, it's just another listening session. But at times, it becomes a life changing experience. The song remains the same, but you start associating memories with it. Happenings from life with it. And then, music and you become one.

Thaalam - Job, Charan, Yakzon (Malayalam)

The other day, a cousin of mine posted a link to this video below.






After doing some googling around the title of the track, I decided to check out the album. It turns out that Rex Vijayan of Avial fame was part of the production. A very excellent malayalam album. Unlike most other stuff that the pop industry from the state churn out, this had some very good compositions and Rex's mixing really stands out. And the three young artists, under whose names the album is, have done an excellent work on the vocals, with the exception of the track Iruthala Pakshi, in which the legendary Malayalam actor, Nedumudi Venu has lent his extraordinarily powerful voice.

One thing I particularly liked about this album is that the bass stands out. Like I often say on twitter, Bass guitar is to Beautiful music, what mascara is to a pair of beautiful eyes.

Do check out the album.