Straight out of Kolkata, India – Sambadi Majumder, guitarist and songwriter extraordinaire. His debut album is called Unseen and Beyond. And it’s one heck of a debut album!
According to Sambadi, the album “narrates the story of a "soul", rather the journey of a "soul" through purely instrumental means. The soul's journey takes it to a world which is "Unseen", which it must escape, to avoid the same fate of so many others before it.”
Stylistically, Sambadi is hard rock, but that doesn’t begin to cover his style of music, which carries influences from jazz, R&B and raga rock. If pressed, I would liken it to an amalgamation of Jack White and Joe Satriani – on steroids.
Unseen and Beyond is a ‘concept album’ in the purest sense of the phrase. The first track, “Following Bugs,” blew me away. The first part of the rather long song is blazing guitar riffs, and then about halfway through it descends into a slow, bluesy guitar that is severely elegant.
“No Respite” does exactly that, provides no respite for the soul of the narration, or the listeners ears. It picks up where “Following Bugs” left off. The track is chockfull of full-auto, down-and-dirty guitar licks, along with beau coup fuzz-buster and rapid finger work.
Next up is “The Hidden Sunrise,” a tune that slows things down a bit. There’s a definite blues influence going on in this tune. It’s akin to Jimmy Page mixed with Jimi Hendrix. The guitar is slow and screams out a shrill yammer on singular tones.
The opening guitar on “Welcome” bestows a psychedelic sensibility, followed by hard chords on the guitar accompanied by a sharp, muffled snare drum. Sharp blues licks begin “A funny and odd place,” which takes off into a syncopated rhythm that’s a bit discordant, but well-executed.
My favorite song is “Valour,” with its raging guitar licks, thrashing drums and punk-metal-out-of-control feel. The transitions are sudden, sometimes coming to a full stop, and then jumping back in with even more intensity. As you listen, you ask yourself, “What stimulus brought this forth?”
The last track on the album, “Salvation,” picks up where “The Hateful Arrow” left off – full bore, rage fueled guitar work and rapid-fire drums. Sizzling!
All of the songs on the album funnel into the overall concept, which is difficult to do, especially with so many varied influences entering the equation. Sambadi is to be congratulated on producing an excellent album that takes musical conceptualization into new territory. You don’t want to miss this one.
Find out more about Sambadi Majumder here.