It was during this time last year when I had already decided that I’d be going to attend a Meshuggah concert that was about to happen in my city that I started listening to Scribe. Scribe, a Mumbai based, self proclaimed “Bollywood inspired” metal band was slated as the opening act for Meshuggah (after already having opened for Lamb of God in 2012). I know what you all must be thinking; Bollywood and metal don’t really go together, do they? Well, honestly speaking, Scribe makes it sound good and somehow is able to extract the good parts from both sides and the result is something humungous, humorous, totally kickass and highly mosh-worhty. Let me be really honest as I tell you that Scribe is the only musical artist (besides Alice in Chains, Bhayanak Maut and Lamb of God) that I’ve legally purchased music of. So, straight off the bat, let me tell you this article won’t be like my previous one, only because my judgement is clouded by their awesomeness. Woohoo!!! Scribe!
So, Scribe’s previous album ‘The Mark of Teja’ (Andaaz Apna Apna reference) is an essential for me, there isn’t a day when I don’t listen to songs like ‘I Love You, Pav Bhaji’, ‘1234 Dracula’, ‘Street Archana vs. Vice Varsha’ ‘M-Power’ or the recent buttmuncher I’ve come to love ‘DemonPra’. Be it Hindi choruses, quirky voices, funny lyrics, hotass growls, guitar riffs straight from hell, drums that can just make anybody get up and dance like crazy, a bass (and bassist) that’s just too awesome, Scribe has it all, peeps. Take my advice and start listening to them! Scribe is Vishwesh Krishnamoorthy (Vocals), Prashant Shah (Guitars), Akshay Rajpurohit (Guitars), Srinivasan ‘Vas’ Sunderrajan (Bass) and Virendra G. Kaith (Drums). Their songs are high on pop culture references, inside jokes and general jokes about a lotta things. But that doesn’t mean Scribe is all fun and no games! No, Scribe is all fun and all games (with heavy metal thrown in the bag)!
‘Hail Mogambo’ has been in the works for quite some time and we got a glimpse last year when they played ‘Cops Cop (Cops Cops)’ and ‘Calendar Khana Lao’ live. I’d been waiting eagerly since that night itself, and the time arrived on 27th September when I bought the album. It’s pretty sad that I wasn’t able to give it a good listen and just started listening the album only a few days back, and is the album good or what? I didn’t expect anything less from Scribe but damn! They’ve taken their awesomeness to a completely different plane now.
(Just look at the cover and drool kiddies!)
The album starts off with an instrumental intro named ‘Hail’, which to be true, is not one of my favs off of this album. It sounds like a medieval army marching song, not my type brah, so I’ll move on…The next song is ‘Calendar Khana Lao’ and holy shit (I just might use this a lot) this is really good, I love how there’s a sweet guitar always in the background ringing in my ears, and the drums are just perfect, I can surely sense Scribe going into some djent-ish tones and damn! Vishwesh’s vocals are awesome and that Johnny Lever impression, Kickass!!! As the song ends with “Calendar Khana Lao” being repeated again and again I’m pretty sure this album is gonna be a sweet one.
Next on the bill is ‘Cops Cops (Cops Cops)’ and holy shit! The double bass is so awesome!!! Love how Vishwesh spits on this track (raps, in other words), the song does get a bit radio friendly around the chorus and then it jumps back to it’s awesome feel, so I’m not complaining. ‘Groove Narmada’ comes in next and I can definitely imagine myself sitting on a swing listening to this song trying to achieve the escape velocity of the Earth (:|). Oh the humanity! The next song is definitely one of my favorites on the album, ‘Return of Oberoi’ is just perfect, easily the best part comes after the second chorus around the 2:34 mark, pure awesomeness! Oberoi, for those who don’t know was the central character, a 17th century industrialist around which their previous album revolves. This song just rips into another realm of pure badass!
And Scribe just ventured into the most Linkin Park type segues ever with the beginning of ‘Ha Ha! We are Poor!’. Worry not, it jumps into true Scribe territory soon and this definitely has some really good vocals, raps, growls, quirky voices, fart noises, this song is the shiznit bros! Not to forget the awesome drums, bass and the dual attack of the guitars. The next song ‘Tomato Aryabhatta’ is a pretty interesting song, yeah…okay, well the best part about this song is that it has a carnival feel and that’s good, yeah. Moving on…the next song ‘Captain Raj’ is a pretty solid piece of work and again, the guitars are just mind blowing but the hero on this song is again Vishwesh with the awesome vocals (again, rap, growls, and all the shizzz man!).
(Scribe, last year during NH7 Weekender. Try finding me in the first row there, not with the fact kids though…look the other way poopsie!)
Okay…the next song, ‘Jugal’ should not be judged by face value, I don’t know but somewhere around the 2:30 mark Virendra gets really serious on his drum kit and it’s gorgeous, and now I realize the whole track is some real good drumming, man I had almost skipped this. And with that last beat, we’re greeted by a pretty cool riff of the pretty cool ‘Myothershirt’, and this is just too hypnotic, and no not just during the chorus where I can sense some real simple but effective guitar work…this is definitely gonna be on my morning run playlist! It somewhat reminds me of ‘I Love You, Pav Bhaji’ and that’s something awesome!
Alright, the next song, ‘Black Diamond’ has a sports commentary in the background (which is most probably from Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikandar) and you can hear this awesome part where you’d go “Khalbali, Khalbali, there’s a Khalbali” and “Rapchikilakchikilakchikilak” (man, I just wrote that :|). And the next song, ‘The Fumanchurian’ is an even bigger surprise. Most probably the best hindi chorus ever, period. This delves into qawalli man, ‘Hawa Hawaii’ is referred here, O Damn!!! This is the best song I’ve heard in such a looooooooong time! DAMN! Okay, no, seriously it’s indeed amazing. No, seriously, I’d marry it if I could. And so the album comes to a close with ‘Le Coupe France De Hair’, yeah Amir Khan’s haircut in Andaaz Apna Apna. Nice way to end the album really.
So, the bottomline, easily this is one of the best releases of this year. Most probably the best album I’ve heard this year. The guitars are awesome, the bass is so sickkk, the drums are outta this world and the vocals are amazing! And I love Scribe even more now! A solid 4.75 out of 5 (coz I don’t wanna sound too liberal). Highly recommended.
Best tracks:
Listen to it in its entirety poopsie! Every song is KICKASS!!!
Oh, and what would Mogambo say to this album???
You can find more about Scribe from these links:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/scribecore.in?ref=ts&fref=ts
Reverbnation: http://www.reverbnation.com/scribecore
Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/scribecore
Listen to, and buy Hail Mogambo here:
https://www.oklisten.com/albums/album/hail_mogambo
