Album Reviews
Buddha Blown: Buddha Blown
Buddha Blown is a band that has recognizably allowed their musical influences to grow onto them and reflect in their music and their approach to it. They pay their respects to the rock-and-roll and blues-rock pioneers of the ‘60s and ‘70s, influences that bands cite often but stay true to far less. This self-titled mini-disc clocks in at close to nineteen minutes, and it made me wish at the end of it that they hadn’t taken brevity so seriously. Especially so when I think back to a concert of theirs that I’d watched, where many of their songs took on a play-until-sunrise, free-flowing form.
The first track on this album that caught my ear was the lazily titled “Hey Oh�?, a song that you imagine their vocalist would have sung leaning way back into his beanbag, a mike in one hand and a vice in the other. The singing and the guitaring make you form musical associations that are a much welcome anachronism in today’s my-bastard-son-of-metal-is-better-than-yours trend in the Indian rock scene.
“Sister�? finds place for an earnest, imploring voice over a tenderly plucked guitar, plucking that results in a couple of beautiful solos. There’s a languid grace to this music that reminds you, temperamentally, of somebody like J. J. Cale, who’s quite the high priest of laidbackedness.
There were more than a couple of times when I was made to wonder if a particular aspect of the music was tongue-in-cheek, something that I’ve always appreciated because I think it requires supreme confidence to be able to pull off – or even try. Like a line that went “I keep watching her lovely skin, all I see is she’s so thin�? (huh?!) , and the opening and closing riffs on “Water�?, which have this happy, jocular ring to them.
The guitar solos make me feel like I’m about to settle into my favourite couch at home – you know you’re going to like what’s coming. The rhythm players also settle around the lead nicely. Like on “Dead Man�?, the last track on this album, and also the best.
No fancy electronic interludes. Heck, no keyboards even. Straight-up three-man rock. This is music that is clean, and honest, and distinctly unpretentious, and an album and a sound that will grow on you.
dude,
thought you’d put in a word on their in-house studio and stuff man. you know .. “the joint�!
nice pic.
lemme know if they’re playing in blr man.
Is it just me or does the “S” in the logo look A LOT like the slipknot logo?? Not trying to be a prick.. just wondering… :)
HI,
The Logo is not ‘S’ Its Mr.Sanjeev Tattoo in his Arms which was made at Goa.