Artist: Workshop
Album: Made Love To The Dragon
Release Date: January 16, 2013
Mastered and Mixed by: Sahil Makhija at Demonic Studios
Label: Demonstealer Records
Official Band Website | Official MySpace Profile
Let’s go back to the era when metal in India just resided in little pubs at the corner of dark alleys. Not only there were negligible amount of fans/musicians but those who were, they did not have any sort of platform to perform or enjoy live music. This is when some musicians stepped up and helped India score on global metal scene. Sahil ‘Demonstealer’ Makhija was one such artist who gave the country a hope in the form of Demonic Resurrection. But I won’t get into that because the album which I have today is neither by Demonic Resurrection nor is proper metal album, but from a bone-tickling side project of his, called Workshop.
Workshop was formed back in 2008 when Sahil, along with Hamza and Riju, started providing guitar clinics. Soon, Raj was added to the line-up and Workshop released their first, absolutely hilarious, album ‘Khooni Murga’ in 2009. With tracks like ‘Bunty Aur Mallika Sherawat’, the band received critic and public acclamation and entered the studio for their second studio album, ‘Made Love To The Dragon’. After going through a couple of line-up changes, the current members of the band are: Sahil ‘Demonstealer’ Makhija on guitars and vocals, Devesh ‘Deveshtator’ Dayal guitars, Hamza ‘Hamzoid’ Kazi on drums and Aditya ‘Abominator’ Kadam on bass.
Like their previous album, the band succeeded in coming up with some really cheesy and rib-tickling themes, touching some social topics. The title track itself tells us how innovatively their minds work. ‘Down To Dahisar’ is about a man who wants to buy an apartment but the sky-rocketing property prices in Mumbai lead him to a Dahisar, a place in outskirts of the city whereas ‘She Came’ is about arranged marriages and adultery. ‘Bhoot Bungla’ is about a trip to a haunted house and Gajanand Dhinge is about a typical fat guy from rural India who likes to scratch his gigantic ass. The album also has kind of voluptuous and erogenous tracks like ‘Blues Motion’, ‘Naagin Ki Nazar’ and ‘Made Love To The Dragon’ which would make you roll on floor with laughs. The Persian track is sort of Arabian version ‘Bunty and Mallika Sherawat’ with some non-decipherable vocals and we all know what ‘Munni Jawan v/s Sheila Badnaam’ is about.
Coming to the musical aspects of the album, it consists of really groovy, upbeat and some downright catchy progressions to support the witty lyrics. The album is primarily hard rock with some metal elements like palm-muted riffs and breakdowns. We can witness some fine compositions throughout the record; be it the heavier tracks like ‘Gajanand Dhinge’, ‘Munni Jawan v/s Sheila Badnaam’ and ‘Naagin Ki Nazar’ or the melodic ones ‘Made Love To The Dragon’, ‘Bhoot Bungla’ and ‘Down To Dahisar’. The record also offers some variety with a brilliant metal-blues fusion in the track ‘Blues Motion’ and somewhat jazzy first minute of ‘She Came’. The album features splendid work on guitars with great riffs and ground-breaking solos on every single track. Check out the leads on the track ‘Blues Motion’, which feature incredible guest solos by Mattias AI Eklund and Christopher Godin.
The production of the album is just about average; it exhibits fair amount of dynamics with proper panning but lacks bass. The patches selected for guitars should have had more gain; they are apt for hard rock but they sound a bit blunt at certain places where palm-muted riff are played. However the patches used on solos are perfect.
Summing up, the album is darn good and surely deserves a nomination for Comedy Awards, 2013; highly recommended for all types of listeners and comic freaks.
P.S. Look out for the “bonuts” instrumental track after the ninth track.
