It seems to me that this band has been in the Kolkata Band circuit for quite some time, by which I mean about 5-6 years. Somehow I had not got hold of their album till about 2 yrs back and that too because I heard they were ranked second in a widely acclaimed Rock Band Competition aired on regional television. So, automatically, I was curious and downloaded their albums from esnips along with Eshaan, the band that came first. I will follow up with a review on Eshaan/Ishaan after this but right now its Prithibi! :)
The question however is why I did not review them all this while...
A very simple answer is because in order to review them I had to hear their songs over and over again to be fair and unbiased and provide a good thorough judgement. Actually I take my word back. I am, in no way, judging them. Who the @#%@ am I to judge a professional band that is and will make a lot of money singing their kind of music etc etc. So I would say , all I am doing is trying to create a regular blog on the internet to provide a complete picture of what Bengali Band music is all about and if there would be even 3 people who after reading this blog would go hear a Bengali Band even if they dont understand the lyrics and.... like them, I would consider it a huge success. I would not deny I picture this blog to be something like Chuddy Buddy Ashish's Indian Undergound Podcast. I believe in the revolution that is currently taking place in the Bengali Band scenario in West Bengal and I believe in the success of these and others from Bangladesh. But coming back to the answer, while a review necessarily requires me to go hear the songs at least 5 times, I am really really sad to say Prithibi's first album is NOT one that I would listen to 5 times willingly.
I will explain why. But let it be known I do not have anything against anyone of the band. I dont even know them. Neither do I allow my own musical preferences to cloud my opinions when it comes to these band reviews. Yes of course, till the point of time I get requests from my readers about a certain band to be reviewed by me, I will review these bands in order of complete randomness ocassionally sprinkled with my unbound enthusiasm about a specific album and I would have certain favorite songs in an album, but thats natural isnt it ?
So, I decided, actually yesterday that I will give it a shot and if I cannot really continue writing the review with Prithibi playing on my ears for the entire time I will try at a different time. It didnt happen yesterday, because I thought I could see their influence from their music and so I went and read about them, their website, articles about them and realised I was not too far off. Believe you me, the two words that came to me when I heard 3 of their songs back to back for the first time was White Lion and Glam Rock and lo and behold... they are really honest about their love for the band and the genre. Thats one thing I like about these guys. Their honesty. Or at least their apparent honesty 3 yrs ago when they were just coming in to the scene. So I then went and heard a handful of songs of their other two influences, Lifehouse and Ugly Kid Joe. Yes. I had not heard more than one song each of both of these two bands and so that was a good experience. And now I am back with a much better opinion about Prithibi as a band and their debut self-titled album.
Normally I try to do these reviews in one sitting but I think I have achieved that in only two cases. Once for Prachir and recently for Arbovirus. I guess Prachir happened in one go because I was and am still quite enthusiastic about their first album. Arbovirus was written in the Dubai airport and I had enough time to spend. Today its not going to happen for a completely different reason. I am in Lab right now, its 2 AM. and I am looking at another night out after last night to complete my set of reactions to achieve the natural product that needs to ship out on Monday. And there will be breaks to set up the reaction, take an NMR, column chromatography and other mundane things. So here is my break number 1. For the NMR. Will come back in a while. In the meantime maybe you can check out my other reviews if you are a new reader. If you arent, I trust you to spend your time more wisely! :) One last thing before I leave the keyboard. I am sorry I did promise the next band to be reviewed would be Nemesis but I really want to get these four bands out of the way before I review Nemesis. So the bands I would like to review after Prithibi would be Eshaan/Ishaan ( I really dont know how to spell them in English cause different websites spell it differently), Adhar, Arfigence and Missing Link.
I will be back.
16th January, 2011
Go to the Bengali Rock Search Index
The question however is why I did not review them all this while...
A very simple answer is because in order to review them I had to hear their songs over and over again to be fair and unbiased and provide a good thorough judgement. Actually I take my word back. I am, in no way, judging them. Who the @#%@ am I to judge a professional band that is and will make a lot of money singing their kind of music etc etc. So I would say , all I am doing is trying to create a regular blog on the internet to provide a complete picture of what Bengali Band music is all about and if there would be even 3 people who after reading this blog would go hear a Bengali Band even if they dont understand the lyrics and.... like them, I would consider it a huge success. I would not deny I picture this blog to be something like Chuddy Buddy Ashish's Indian Undergound Podcast. I believe in the revolution that is currently taking place in the Bengali Band scenario in West Bengal and I believe in the success of these and others from Bangladesh. But coming back to the answer, while a review necessarily requires me to go hear the songs at least 5 times, I am really really sad to say Prithibi's first album is NOT one that I would listen to 5 times willingly.
I will explain why. But let it be known I do not have anything against anyone of the band. I dont even know them. Neither do I allow my own musical preferences to cloud my opinions when it comes to these band reviews. Yes of course, till the point of time I get requests from my readers about a certain band to be reviewed by me, I will review these bands in order of complete randomness ocassionally sprinkled with my unbound enthusiasm about a specific album and I would have certain favorite songs in an album, but thats natural isnt it ?
So, I decided, actually yesterday that I will give it a shot and if I cannot really continue writing the review with Prithibi playing on my ears for the entire time I will try at a different time. It didnt happen yesterday, because I thought I could see their influence from their music and so I went and read about them, their website, articles about them and realised I was not too far off. Believe you me, the two words that came to me when I heard 3 of their songs back to back for the first time was White Lion and Glam Rock and lo and behold... they are really honest about their love for the band and the genre. Thats one thing I like about these guys. Their honesty. Or at least their apparent honesty 3 yrs ago when they were just coming in to the scene. So I then went and heard a handful of songs of their other two influences, Lifehouse and Ugly Kid Joe. Yes. I had not heard more than one song each of both of these two bands and so that was a good experience. And now I am back with a much better opinion about Prithibi as a band and their debut self-titled album.
Normally I try to do these reviews in one sitting but I think I have achieved that in only two cases. Once for Prachir and recently for Arbovirus. I guess Prachir happened in one go because I was and am still quite enthusiastic about their first album. Arbovirus was written in the Dubai airport and I had enough time to spend. Today its not going to happen for a completely different reason. I am in Lab right now, its 2 AM. and I am looking at another night out after last night to complete my set of reactions to achieve the natural product that needs to ship out on Monday. And there will be breaks to set up the reaction, take an NMR, column chromatography and other mundane things. So here is my break number 1. For the NMR. Will come back in a while. In the meantime maybe you can check out my other reviews if you are a new reader. If you arent, I trust you to spend your time more wisely! :) One last thing before I leave the keyboard. I am sorry I did promise the next band to be reviewed would be Nemesis but I really want to get these four bands out of the way before I review Nemesis. So the bands I would like to review after Prithibi would be Eshaan/Ishaan ( I really dont know how to spell them in English cause different websites spell it differently), Adhar, Arfigence and Missing Link.
I will be back.
16th January, 2011
Go to the Bengali Rock Search Index
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