Gully - Euphoria

I would like to make one point clear before I start . I have given this album a product rating of 3 stars. But , thats only because over here all the albums are rated on the same platform. So I can’t give a Floyd album 5 stars and do the same to a Euphoria album .If the ratings were only among hindi albums this surely deserves 5 stars . Moving on....

For the past 1 week I have written incessantly about the gods of music the Floyds ,   Zeppelins etc. ’Twas time I said something about the Indian scene. Well, to say the least the Indian rock bands are suffering from massive Black Sabbath , Iron Maiden, Megadeth hangovers.

This is probably the reason behind their commercial failure . There are a few bands , whom I wouldn’t name , with immense potential but their only drawback is their inability to understand the psyche of the Indian listeners . It has been seen time after time that the most succesful musicians had great marketing brains , which helped them to stay afloat when others sunk . To say, that Euphoria , in its present combination has followed that law , would not be an overstatement .

Euphoria was established in1989 with members Ashok, Sunil, Ravi, Jitty and Polly. They played in college fests , carnivals , private parties and innumerable concerts and did hardcore rock covers covering bands like Van Halen , Pink Floyd , Queen etc .Over the years the band has been through a topsy-turvy ride of members joining the band and quitting it.So much so , in its current form ’Polly’ or Palash Sen is the only surviving   member from the original band . From time to time Euphoria came up with a few original compositions in English like ’’Eat You Up Alive’’ , ’’Lovin’ U is a crime’’ , ’’Free’’ , ’’Where Does Love Take Us From Here?’’ etc . But the record labels were not interested in recording a band singing 2 or 3 original english compositions and fill up the album with covers.Euphoria knew better .

In 1998 after dominating the concert circuit for 9 years Euphoria released their first album Dhoom on Archies Music under huge media hype . The album was   an instant hit with the title track busting all charts . They followed it up with Phir Dhoom and a single Mantra. Their latest release is Gully and features band members Polly a.k.a. Dr. Palash Sen , DJ, Benny , Hitesh , Gaurav , Chris and the two new members Rakesh and Prashant doing their bit on the Tabla , Mridangam , Dholak , Duff ala the Indian essence of the album .

Gully is a platter of emotions , varying between love , patriotism , non-violence etc. , served to the audience in the right proportions . The title track is again on the top of every music chart and the album is hot stuff , fast disappearing off the racks .But , I have to admit I dont quite understand the stubbornness of the band towards calling their genre ’’Hindrock’’ although Palash himself admits ’’We had to mellow it down to an extent that fellow ’rockers’ thought it was sissy ’’ . Their songs are pretty good , maybe great by Indian standards , but it aint rock . Anyways , whats in a name ’’That which we call a rose...............’’ , u know the rest .

The album was released at the right time , not clashing with any great music release . People were looking for fresh stuff and with Euphoria , freshness is guaranteed . The album opens with the title track Gully .’’ A walk on the wild side ’’ as Polly puts it . A usual peppy number with typical Euphoria kind of lyrics . Nothing special but a feel-good track . The next number Ab na jaa is an amazing love song and my favourite on the album . It has got some great lyrics and exhibits a really mature approach towards songwriting .Songs like Sone de maa and Raja Rani brings out the essence of Indian music in its ever pleasant way . The earlier single Mantra also finds a slot in this album and basically captures the band’s ’’key to success’’....

YEH HAI MERA MANTRA! ’’

Aisa Ek Jahan is a search for Utopia and has some good lyrics penned by Deekshant and Palash. The few other tracks like Kuchh Nahin , Meethi Chashni are ear-friendly and   mostly sound good.

However , there are a couple of tracks which seem like a waste of time . Waise Hi is a qawali impersonation and could’ve been done without . OO Piyu is the only English track and sounds like a cheap Deep Purple mimicry .Praarthnaa is a prayer to the almighty and seems influenced from Sain Alaap , the closing track in Junoon’s album Azadi.

But , only three below-average numbers in a hindi album means its totally worth buying , cause mostly we buy albums with just one or two good numbers and about 8/9 worthless songs . This is why I have given this band 3 stars , which is the maximum that a hindi album could get in my reviews.

However , dont be fooled by the mellow and soft stuff that this band records . If you’ve ever been to a Euphoria concert you’d know they can rock your mind with some killer covers while their guitarist Hitesh mercilessly churns out some great riffs off his axe .