I guess sequels only get better in the IT industry. When you move from version 1 to version 2, you could expect a lot of bug fixes, somewhat fancier UI and more. But when it comes to entertainment industry, things don’t necessarily get better all the time. There are tonnes of examples that both you and I could come up with, where things have gotten worse. This morning i was coming to school in MARTA or subway system in Atlanta and i was listening to this song called Salik 2.0 from XMantra and i was really disappointed.
XMantra has always been considered one of the cool metal bands. Their peculiar high-biased distortion, meaningful lyrics and somewhat uniquely manifested vocals have earned the band a place amongst the best in Nepal. I remember going to a concert in the Dashrath Stadium where 1974AD, Robin and the New Revolution and XMantra performed. even though their music catered to only a small fraction in the crowd. I sure enjoyed it. Titles like Salik and Makura ko Jalo were really nice and i enjoyed listening to them once in a while. Salik had a nice riff, somewhat gruff vocals and sounded like ‘metal’. Salik 2.0 on the other hand is, i would call, inharmonious. It feels that the song is literally about to fall apart. The vocals suck. Its high time that the band understands shouting is not equal to metal – you gotta scream for that and shredding doesn’t make any sense when the bassist is playing something like a blues pattern. A side by side comparision would be something like
- Salik (original) starts off with a cool plugin. The newer one starts off with somewhat Metallica type of sound with the vocalist trying (unsuccessfully) to recite a prose with somewhat fancy ending.
- The basslines are different. First one was a lot cooler. Second one’s like i wrote before a blues type of pattern – something of a 12 bar sort.
- The riffs and the fills are totally different. Its like the guitarist just got cloned out of Michaelangelo and Slash fused together and downgraded. So he’s kind of confused what to play next.
- Vocals – well for a Newar guy, shouting in Nepali – he’s doesn’t sound good in his usual voice. Maybe if he screams it might get a little better. The pronounciation of each of the words aren’t so uniform. Some words have a hilly accent, other have mountainous accent, rest of the time he sounds like a newar. Its like he’s lived in Solukhumbu, Ramechhap, Salyan and where not.
- Drums – no comment. I’m not a drummer.
In plainsight i would simply say that they lack practice in this song in everybody’s part. I would say that its way better to produce one nice song than have million crappy songs just to hang around in the industry.
