Indus Creed is back with hard hitting THIEF

Okay let me get this out of the way. I haven't heard much of Indus Creed's earlier work. I have heard the song Rock and Roll Renegade which is a good song and is catchier than common cold (while also being a million times more enjoyable) but the Bon Jovi influence in both the music and the video is a bit overpowering. I have also heard Pretty Child which I consider one of the better rock songs from India. Beautiful, dreamy and the video was absolutely gorgeous. 

However, it was the 2012 comeback, Evolve, that truly got me into Indus Creed. It was a satisfying prog rock record that I thing is really underrated. But for some reason it did feel like Indus Creed were restraining themselves just a little bit. Holding back an edge that I felt they had in lieu of a more cohesive record. I couldn't quite put my finger on it then. 

With THIEF, I know exactly what it was. The chugging riffs set up a slightly tilted groove. The guitar's meatier. Bassist Krisna Jhaveri, who suddenly seems to be everywhere I look, stays bound to the groove at times but does make his presence felt at some others. Drummer Jai Row Kavi does a great job. I really had to strain my ears to hear the keys. But for this song I can't say I missed a more prominent input from the keyboards. 

What I did miss, maybe, was a slightly more prominent solo. It's in no way a bad solo and it's not that it didn't fit in. It fits in a bit too well in fact and it's just that I was expecting it to stand out a bit more. This song goes for the hard hitting route while still retaining the prog leanings from the last album. Front man Uday Benegal's voice still has that slightly strained quality and it works really well in the context of this band.

This is a band displaying an easy flair that comes from being there from the beginning and knowing how to not go away.

The art of sucking at carrom: The uber secret Heisenberg technique.

I have had an excruciatingly long carrom career. Around fifty times longer than it should have been. It should have been exactly one match long. After three or four turns the three other players should have all been glaring at me. Then one of them should have said-
"Man, my dog could play better than you!"
To which I would have replied-
"Dude you don't have to be so smug about your dog. If I had a dog, he could have played better than me too. So yeah, big deal!"
Then I would have walked out, stolen some money from dad's wallet and bought a carrom board. Then I would set it on fire and chant whatever mantra there is for freeing oneself of all earthly bindings to carrom.

Sadly, things never turn out the way we want them to. There were four of us. That made two teams. And we were all good friends. So they'd feel obliged to ask me to play, and I'd feel obliged to say yes, and then there'd be misery all around. No one wanted me on their team. I didn't want to be on anyone's team. I was bad at carrom, I wasn't Mogambo. I'd feel terrible for whoever was on my side. He'd turn in a heroic performance. I'd try not to get in the way much. Then we'd lose. You could say I acted as a handicap. I'd be paired with the strongest player as a feeble attempt to level the playing field. But when someone is as good at his job as me, levelling the playing field becomes akin to filing down the Himalayas to the ground level. With sand paper. If there was a Superman of the Carrom world, someone you just couldn't defeat unless you had kryptonite, I'd be the kryptonite.

So, how did I come to so master the art of sucking at carrom.

The uber secret Heisenberg technique.

Now, understand that not everyone will be able master this. This is not something that comes from practice (or lack thereof). You could say I was gifted. I was special. I would put the striker in position. Then I'd take my own sweet time (figure of speech; it wasn't actually sweet for anyone) during which, I'd stare at the carrom man (or coin or whatever those little round bastards are called) and make false promises in my head. Like for example "Oh, I'm gonna get you this time!" or "Oh, I'm so gonna go and steal money from dad and buy a carrom board and burn it and rid myself of all earthly bindings to it." Occasionally my friends would say a word or two to motivate me. Like "Oh come on! we're getting old here. Are you going to shoot today?" Then finally, taking in a long deep breath of air, I'd pause for effect, and shoot.

This is where Heisenberg's uncertainty principle came into play. No matter how much I stared, I never knew where the damn wooden coin actually was, and on the rare occasions my striker actually hit it, no one could really tell where it was going to end up. It was all rather uncertain. Sometime I'd manage to pocket one and it would somehow change colour inside the pocket and turn into the opposition's coin (or man or whatever). I was the master of uncertainty. I like to think of it that way. The other way being- I spent my childhood being regularly trolled by little inanimate wooden coins.

So, now you know. If superman challenges you to a carrom match, you say, "Sure but I pick my team mate and your's too." That guy's like Ned Stark with superpowers; he'll say yes. And then you get in touch with me, and together, we'll beat superman. Like batman once did, and will do again in Batman v. Superman. And all I want as payment is a carrom board, and some kerosine, and a pack of matches.

Memories of Ice review

Three books into the series, the mist that lay heavy over the story in Gardens of the Moon (GotM), hindering any attempt whatsoever to predict what the next chapter might bring to light, has mostly lifted. In Memories of Ice (MoI) it is relatively easy to see where the story is headed and that really helps. I wouldn't go so far as to call the book predictable. It is far from it. However, this time around there is a clearer sense of plot.
After Deadhouse Gates which takes us to another continent and introduces us to a whole new story line, book 3 takes us back to the familiar grounds of Genabackis amongst characters already established in the first book. Now if you've read the first two books you already know that Erikson fills his books up with so many characters that its almost a miracle he gets any amount of character development in at all. But he does. It had seemed a little patchy in the first book. But the thing is, now that I've read MoI, I'm sure a reread of GotM will reveal it to be a much stronger book than it had initially seemed.
So many characters that had left me a little unconvinced have finally found a place in my heart, certain niggling questions answered. Characters like Kruppe, Quick Ben and Ganoes Paran gain a lot of depth though the book. Especially Kruppe. This was one character I was really struggling with. His behaviour and his motivations had both seemed contrived to me back in Gardens. After MoI it's obvious that Erikson had intentionally painted him that way. With every appearance in the book he makes more and more sense. I can understand how some people might feel a little ambivalent towards this character, or just downright hate him, but I consider Kruppe one of Erikson's many master strokes.
There are many new characters and they are equally well handled. The story itself is brilliantly crafted. This time there is a clearer antagonist from the beginning and another particularly formidable one gets set up a few chapters in, but Erickson deftly keeps it from being a basic good vs bad tale. And the story keeps taking unexpected turns. People suddenly end up in positions of peril. Or equally frequently, in positions of power. Betrayals and unlikely alliances are both organically grafted in. A cast of characters as big as the one Erikson employs can only work when the story convinces us that each of them has a valid place in it. Well... no issues there.
The ending was great. Even saying how absolutely, overwhelmingly good it was feels like spoiling it a bit. The climax ranks as one of the best I've ever encountered. And as the dust settles in the end, emotions come to the fore. Its almost a responsibility for a book this large in both size and scope to deliver a satisfying resolution at the end. This book delivers on that front flawlessly in my mind. Oh, there might have been a few flaws here and there, definitely. But a satisfied mind is, more often than not, inclined to ignore such things. So, I'd be happy to not know.