Thee [தீ] by Encore

Yesterday afternoon, I got an email from Bharat , a musician , I have never met him or spoken to him before, He introduced himself as a part of Tamil music band called Encore. He requested me to comment on their new Tamil album Thee [தீ], which had good press coverage in Tamil magazines.

I wasted no time; I went to their website and heard samples which they call it as music teasers. Honestly I was spellbound by the title song “Thee” [Fire] - title track - which was clearly a class apart from all other songs in the album. The genre is established right away. Rock! Good old Classic Rock! “"There is great drummer behind every great rock track”. Yes Drummer! is often the very important person in a rock track, simply he has to be good if not the best. These guys have got this part right. The drumming was simply mind blowing, Right from bar one, it reminded me the class often found in songs like Highway Star [Deep Purple]. I
checked the credits and found the reason, Yes this was a performance by “Lord of the Drums” One Mr. Sivamani. I saw his name in the credits, it must be none other him. The cracking! enthusiastic hits were similar to Viru or Sachin in one day mood. The snare hits are still ringing around my ears. I was able to feel the pleasurable pain the snare and toms took to deal Sivamani and his magic hands. Basically I think no Tamil song till date has let Sivamani play freely in this fashion. This is what I often refer to as Tightness in music. As if this was not enough, the flow and placements of guitar parts were clever. The 1st interlude cleverly plays a famous sloka , during which Sivamani rolls his famous bells sounds etc that has l/r panning. Finally vocals by Ranjit, a power house of energy he flows with the track and enjoys the song.

Few things I felt in the “Thee” song. The guitar sounds [lead, power chords etc] can be more in the front, kind of parallel to the vocals and drumming, the song format - I expected more of verse and chorus, but was slightly tilted towards Tamil format of Pallavi/1stBG/Saranam/Pallavi, no big deal though.

I also heard others songs clips, the genre seemed to have changed after the first track. I felt they got themselves trapped a little towards Tamil cinema music, felt very usual. I wish they had maintained the rock genre all through. There were also other play back singers in the album. Chinmayee sings - Thaai Polavae and Prasanna sings Endhan Uyirae.

I think after the Indian Band called Om, I am impressed with the Thee track, I would buy the CD for this track alone, a banging opening to the Tamil Rock Arena. We have wonderful talent out there!, we need to encourage such talents, it is not always a movie song!, time to break the ice and get out more private albums out.

Record Label is Saregama, I have asked them where to get this; will post it once I get some news on this album.I wish them good luck and expect them to maintain genre consistency in their future albums.

Finally,
Few days [Blogs] ago I had mentioned about the kathakali dance by Sreesanth for every wicket, here is the reason,

Good day!...