Get TZINGed !

Students need it, sportsperson crave it, workaholics are addicted to it and they are the new fad’s in Foods & beverages market.

Yes, i am talking about energy drinks. One such new product in this segment is “Tzinga”. Having tried it, i can safely say it has the potential to give some serious competition to all these established brand names in energy drinks segment. Why do i say so, you ask ? Well, let me enumerate the reasons;

1..It’s all natural without any artificial flavours and additives. (yea, yea everyone claims but Tzinga actually does it !!)

2..It does not taste like, the plethora of aerated bubbly soft drinks out there. And, you got three most awesome flavour combinations to choose from, namely Tropical Trip, Lemon Mint and Mango Strawberry. ( Don’t tell me, you aren’t already itching to try those flavours ! )

3..An attractive, easy to handle packaging. You can easily carry it in your bag, pouch, cargo pants and without any feeling of carrying extra weight. This packaging also makes it more environment friendly, than those PET bottles and CANs used by other energy drinks.

4.. Rs. 20/- for 200 ml !! Do i need to say more !

5.. And the most important aspect, it actually works !! All the ingredients i.e. gensing, guarana, taurine used in this product to give you that rejuvenated feeling, are completely natural and effective.

This product is from Hector Beverages , a start-up of three MBA graduates. This is all the more commendable considering the fact that F&B segment rarely see’s any start-up ventures because of the high risk involved going against well-established names in this F&B market. But they really sum it up nicely on their website.

“ And the company goes on and calls itself Hector, who lost to Achilles.

But that, people, is the trip: the audacity of the underdog.

We decided to take the big guys on

We decided to not be cowed down by the big bullies who make their fortune selling sweetened, fizzy water.

And we know that Achilles does not have the most powerful heels.”

Makes you think, if the writer of above lines was energized with TZINGA !  Go ahead guys, get TZINGed with TZINGA !

I-Quit …. Steve Paul Jobs R.I.P.

Ruthlessness, when faced with competition, win at any cost and progression ! Three characteristics that, most thinkers and white-collar guys would frown upon, but these were the strong emotions Steve used to build an empire called Apple inc. He dared to take on the mammoth, that was, IBM at that time and succeeded. His success exemplified the fact that, if one wants to achieve something big in his/her life, then he/she has to digress from the path trampled upon by normal people with a blind eye. And, that calls for incredible amount of courage for facing failures and conviction or belief in one’s ability.

I-Rule

Steve was not a perfect person by any stretch of imagination, but he was. what i call ” a realistic role model” ! More, often than not, whenever I came across a success story, it would invariably reflect, how perfect the life of the protagonist was but, here we had a man who was short-tempered, narcissistic bordering on being obnoxious, and somewhat flawed family values but he was an innovator par excellence and a shrewd human being. Of course, he didn’t have a “perfect life” and he ended up hurting more friends than he made acquaintances, but in my opinion that is part and parcel of life, you lose some to win some. Being all goodie goodie with everyone and still achieve, what he did, is nearly impossible ! All said and done, Steve Jobs will still continue to be in everyone’s memory, haters & supporters alike, that was the impact of the man, the enigma, Steve Paul Jobs !

R.I.P. Steve! You have truly inspired a generation.

This is one of the most inspiring speeches made by Jobs, based on his personal experiences at Stanford University Commencement ceremony.

God is an astronaut

Once in every man’s life, there comes a time, when something so beautiful and so mesmerizing comes along that he has to stop, and think if this is indeed real ! It happened for me, well this was no person but it was in the form of a musical genre, or more specifically a band. Now, most would see this as an exaggeration, but trust me, if you really love music and not just listen to it as a background score to your everyday chores, then, you would understand what i mean.

God is an astronaut, introduced me to a genre of music, that i had never even heard of before, and it’s discovery was purely unintentional. The name “post-rock” quite fascinated me. Now, after countless number of plays and commanding a significant chunk of my I-pod memory, this music is giving no signs of boring me. The breathtaking atmospheres and landscapes that it creates, the crescendos that it reaches and the deep caverns it ventures into, it is quite enchanting. And, all this without any vocals or bare minimum of it. The last time something moved me so much was Burzum and his brand of dark “necro” music. Come to think of it both try to create that ambience only difference being,  burzum’ s version was more dark and sinister
Music truly has the power to move you, and most miss out on the experience because they are too used to their staple diet of pop music. If you really want to experience the force, move beyond the conventional. And as some jedi from star wars would say, may the force be with you (p.s. i really haven’t watched star wars)

Why Bollywood Sucks !

We can do it !

So, i just finished watching PHAS GAYE RE OBAMA, and i couldn’t help but wonder, if this movie was indeed a product churned out from the same  Bollywood factory, which has a reputation of  producing movies which usually garners responses like “you don’t need a brain for that”  or ” i couldn’t believe the director was a 2-year-old” . The movie is simplistic and yet brilliantly narrated with an ensemble cast without any big names, it just proves, yet again (for most of the retarded Bollywood directors, to take notice) that you don’t need a freaking BIG star dancing on top of a hill in Switzerland and showing off his six packs or even a sheila or munni to make a good movie. You just need a story, and some competent actors to make it work.

Kat

Hats off to the director Subhash Kapoor, for in spite of being in the Bollywood mainstream, he dared to take a road less traveled, and succeeded. I wouldn’t hesitate to say that, this is one of the few Bollywood movies that i have found “entertaining” in its true sense and hence enjoyed every bit of. Although, i feel disappointed now, that  i didn’t watch this movie in a theater.

Movie making is an art of story telling, and not shooting 20 songs in 100 different locales with 1000 costume changes or even having sheila or munni gyrating her hips in the faces of audience. Hence not every Tom, Dick and Harry can or should be allowed to pick up a camera and call himself a director.

RAT KING

At the outset let me mention that, I am not a big fan of industrial music and a complete novice in this genre, only encounter with this kind of music for me was until now, probably the last few Burzum albums. Now RAT KING with their distinct sound provides quite an interesting listen. I am going to review both their albums The Plague Of Hamelin and Larva, together, because I have been listening to these two albums on one go most of the times. Of course, both clocking at around 35 minutes mark is an advantage.

Going from plague of Hamelin to larva, you can see the quite obvious growth in the sound. Larva having more of the drum heavy sound and Plague of Hamelin being the more ambient one. Lots of instruments/samples have been used on both these albums and they all pack quite a punch. Vocals wise both albums are very minimalistic, almost to the extent of being extinct, the emphasis is more on creating a heavy synth laden sound and mind you, it tends to be quite heavy. I can draw the quite obvious comparison with Celtic frost’s Monotheist and the aggressive parts on these albums can easily compare to that of Monotheist.

Starting with Plague of Hamelin, which is quietly based on the story of “Pied Piper of Hamelin” only a more morbidly distorted version of that and certainly not something you subject a nursery student to. Now the great aspect of this album is, you cannot review the songs on this separately; they have to be listened to on a whole and hence the opinion forming has to be done on the whole album, it’s very difficult to pick one favorite song on these. Individually the songs may not seem that interesting or appealing, on the contrary even quite simplistic, but as a whole it packs  the punch. Drums are effectively used for beating the shit out of them to create that heavy sound and synth with various other samples for creating that haunting sound, This being a concept album and trying to convey a concept purely by instruments can be quite a taxing job, for me this is where this album fails but  this is good listen for times, when you are sitting alone in a dark and gloomy place. You might not necessarily picture the pied piper playing his pipe but I assure you it can bring a far more scary picture in front of your eyes

Larva is quite obviously my favorite of the two albums; you can see the growth in the sound as well as its production. Much more varied use of instruments and song structure here is more dynamic than plague of Hamelin. I mean, on plague of Hamelin most songs would have the quieter beginning, and culminate in heavy drum bashing but this is much more dynamic and defines the genre “experimental industrial ambient” much better. The musicianship is much improved too; some of the blast beating on this is insane!  And I can hardly count how many different instruments I can hear on this.

As i sit here, with my earphones plugged in and subjecting my ear-drums to those aforementioned insane blast beatings of Larva, i would just say, All in all a great listen if you are a fan of this genre, and an even better if you are a novice for this kind of music. This might not be your quintessential METAL album but if you are open for all kinds of music, hell, you can definitely go for it and at 100 bucks each it’s completely worth it.

Mayhem- DeathCrush

Warning: This post is intended for people who find the rawness of Norwegian Black Metal, to be its most key feature !

What an album, i mean seriously WHAT a freaking Masterpiece. I had downloaded Mayhem discography some time back, and like most others, listened to only De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas and some part of Grand declaration Of War of it. Rest all have been Mayhem albums but not quite the same Mayhem. But, then somehow i got down to  listening to DeathCrush, and boy did it blew me over or what ! The production on this is quite minimalistic, even in case of pure musicianship this is far from DMDS, but hell, it does live up to its title. The sound on this is not quite the trademark Black Metal sound of nowadays, but at the time it had come out, Norwegian Black Metal was in its infancy, but it really crushes your head nevertheless and Maniac on vocals is just insane. It opens with the drum rolls of Silvester anfang, but following this is the insane amount of blast beats and ear-piercing riffs that would decimate any average listener. The music on this ranges from pure thrash to extreme heavy metal. My favorite song on this being Necrolust, whose intro is just plain heavy. Now, I can understand why this album, inspired a new wave of black metallers to take up the baton. This is what, you can define as EXTREME !

Now, this might be quite late in the day, but give this a listen, if you haven’t already.

Book Review – Lords of Chaos

The thing that got me interested in  this book, apart from the cover was the review by Varg on his official site, he has absolutely trashed this book and annihilated the authors for supposed misinterpretations and crediting him with interviews, which never took place. As hard as that was to believe, i still thought maybe some truth would be there, afterall you can’t write a book of lies and publish  it world over. But, after going through this book once, that perception of mine has thoroughly changed. This book is nothing but utter rubbish, well to be nice, the book does have its some moments of intrigue but those are very few and far in between.

Starting on the book, the title of which is thoroughly misleading, it doesn’t depict any “bloody rise of satanic metal underground”, it is a book written for enjoyment of people interested in conspiracy theories. In fact in the mid-part of the book, the authors are on whole hearted mission to present the rise of black metal in Norway to be some kind of conspiracy by Nazis to come back to power, i mean seriously WTF ! Any  author, who undertakes  a job of chronicling an event such as this, has to make sure that he does this without any prejudices or partiality, the opinion forming has to be left to readers, if he himself starts presenting it in a way which makes this revolution look like a furore created by a bunch of drunken teenage punks, then the whole purpose of the book is defeated, thats where Michael Moynihan & Didrik Soderlind  have went horribly wrong with this book. So, a book which could have been the History of Black Metal is reduced to a corny conspiracy theory. Now, after going through this book, i can understand why Varg Vikerness must have been miffed with the authors, because throughout the book, he has been portrayed as a mass murderer, a maniac, a nazi, a leader of a band of terrorists and what not. Every interviews that the authors conduct, and there are too many of them, eventually the discussion would come down to Varg, and how crazy he was ! After a point it tends to become funny, how the authors are going about the world asking people about Varg Vikerness. They fail to understand that the movement for Varg and likely most bands involved in Norwegian Black Metal scene, was more for going back to pagan roots then worship of some christian myth called “Satan”. The church burnings were more a symbol of going against Christianity than satan worship.  But, they go on with their rhetoric, that black metal musicians practiced devil worship, witchcraft, satanic rituals etc.

Out of the 400 odd pages that the book runs for 350 pages are filled with interviews with doctors, psychologists, scientists, physicists etc. and which are totally out of context and makes the reading an absolute ordeal. The good part of the book is the history that has been documented for Germanic black metal, which i was unaware of, and some nordic mythology, which is always a pleasure to read. Anton La Vey, who is so much detested by black metallers especially Varg, has been portrayed as some kind of master of them, which reflects the total ignorance on the part of the authors, while writing the book. They have sensationalized the whole thing in a sick and perverted way.

Any metalhead who has been listening to black metal for a while and has been following its history, can easily make out the whole load of crap the authors are selling here. I had ordered this book online, and after spending ridiculous money over this, it has been a total waste of time. Skip this and read some dumbed down novels of chetan bhagat instead, atleast thats cheaper.

A New Age has Begun

Demonic Resurrection, got an emotional connection with this band, they were the first ever indian metal band that i heard while beginning my sojourn to this colossal world of Metal. They are now relatively the veterans of indian metal scene, and with their brand of insane metal, termed aptly as “demonic metal” by Sahil Demonstealer Makhija, they have never disappointed with any of their records, and with their current offering, they have just stepped up a notch.The band has been undergoing constant line-up changes since last couple of years and have finally settled with a great group of musicians, highly proficient at wielding their respective gears. I must admit, i was really skeptical of Daniel, the first time i saw him play, and if my memory serves me right it was at resurrection VIII at that shitty Borivali venue, but how well has he come along, he has completely owned this record, and i can’t forget people going ape shit over his soloing at Resurrection XI.

Getting down to the record itself, the box set itself is piece of art with a rich glossy touch to it and an equally brilliant art work done by Michal “Xaay” Loranc.This drooling factor on this record doesn’t stop there, all the above-mentioned are just the peripherals to what the record actually contains and it is no less brilliant. The album opens with “Between infinity and oblivion”which has some excellent work by Mephisto on keys, it truly gives you the epic feel for something truly great is about to happen. “Where dreams and darkness unite” is one of my favorite tracks on the album, and it carries the mood perfectly with some kickass death growls by Sahil and Viru pounding away on drums with equivocal ferocity.

The most striking part of this record is the world class production that your ears are subjected to, the sound is extremely clear and profound. The unrenlenting surge of vengence is another of my favorite tracks, it gets extremely heavy with its sudden breaks and no sane person can stop himself from bobbing their heads up and down to this one.

It is very difficult to categorize this record into any specific genre, because you are having so much on your plate, there is kamelot styled power metal, then death/ thrash riffs, black metal styled blast beating. This is truly an epic, aptly demonstrated by “Lord of pestilence”, with its beginning uncannily reminding me of Frozen Portrait, it goes on for a sheer length of eleven and half minutes but it never gives you a feeling that it is getting monotonous or just skip over to the next track, it is a masterclass composition, with its dynamic nature, it keeps you hooked on. Anyways being an avid listener of black metal, you somehow get used to such track lengths. “Omega, I” ends this masterpiece and a perfect ending at that.

A new warrior has risen from ashes to take over the fucking world, one festival at a time Inferno and Brutal Assault beckons DR, and no other Indian band could have been chosen to demonstrate the prosperity and musicianship of Indian Metal Scene (apart from Kryptos, of course) better than DR.

A must must listen for coming of age of Indian metal.