Rishi

Rating: 5/10

For: Listening to while traveling/driving, general non-film pop-hungry crowd.

Strengths: A little variety, good instruments / arrangement, guitars.

Weaknesses: Lack of good/catchy melodies, ordinary lyrics, just-average vocals.

Best Songs: Saamne, Zameen, Samjho Na
Avoidable songs: Get Lucky, Jaa Khula Hai.

Recently, quite a few artists have been given breaks by Universal and Rishi is another example. Unfortunately, so far none of those guys (for e.g. Raeth) turned it into something really big and I won’t easily put my money on Rishi either.

Hard work has definitely gone into the album, but not in the right areas. Various styles and arrangements have been tried out, with the songs mostly centered on the guitar and full marks for the sound, variety and skill with the instruments, but the album lacks good lyrics, catchy melodies and strong vocal performance - the very three characteristics of a blockbuster!

Now to the songs..

'Saamne' is the peppiest song and suitably the title track. Also, experimentation is at its least in this one with very simple beats, melody and limited use of words! The sound is very synthetic and this one has hardly any guitars in it. Grooving to this song is quite easily and you start humming it once you listen to it a couple of times. This is the only song with a remix in the album, and since the original itself is power-packed, and the vocals have been ambushed in the remix, I think you should just stick to the original!

'Zameen' starts off very Lucky Ali-ish and carries the feel good feeling all the way. The sound is rich with acoustic guitar chords dominating the instruments. This is one of those songs you like the first time but lose interest later, mainly because there is a lot of beating-around-the-bush with the structure of the song and the hook lines take too much time to come back.

'Samjho Na' is a surprise. Great work on the vocals by Mathangi Rajshekhar (Rishi doesn't sing this one). The groove though, is very similar to a recent remix on 'Babuji Dheere Chalna'. This song is pretty ethereal and is really good to use while traveling.

‘Tumsa’ and ‘Yarana’ sort of branch out of the title track (Saamne) with a little more guitar packed into them and are pretty monotonous with just average tunes and lyrics. ‘Tumsa’ actually sounds like the sequel to ‘Lady’ by ‘Modjo’ with a very similar bass line, but somehow doesn’t score well.

The vocals are disappointing in ‘Get Lucky’ – just not the kind of song suited for his voice and the song gets too complicated after a minute, to the extent of being called silly. With hardly any direction, this is the least recommended song of the album.

‘Jaa Khula Hai’ is another one like ‘Zameen’ and has slightly better lyrics but it’s all too monotonous by the time you get to this.

The last track is an interesting instrumental trance number called ‘Gumm’. This one’s very different from all the other songs and will score with you if you fancy trance music.

Overall this album has just-good-enough songs but nothing memorable. If you have cash to spare, get this one for the top 2-3 songs.