Indus Creed

When Rock Machine revamped the band’s image and sound they also took up a new name ‘Indus Creed’. With Indus Creed the band left behind the traditional hard hitting rock sound, bringing in soft rock/acoustic rock elements into their songs and also incorporated Indian instruments into their music. They released their self titled debut album as Indus Creed which is their only full length studio album till date.

A tabla backing acoustic guitars, is something the guys probably wouldn’t have even thought of whilst in Rock Machine. But they tried it on Trapped which latter would become a hit formula for many other bands. Uday Benegal’s vocal harmonies have jelled well with the band’s mature sound. A video was recorded for the song which made its fair share of rounds in the 90’s on MTV.

Sleep showcases the band’s new found modern rock sound much like New Day, but fails to impress although the chorus is kind of catchy not to mention Jayesh Gandhi’s guitar intro. Benegal’s vocals sound wonderful on New Day and on Thrown it all away, which has the ever sweet sounding sarangi.

Best Friend brings back flashes of the 80’s with keyboard and flashy guitar licks all over the song against a funky riff. Fly’s pulsating picking and orchestrated keyboards give a very Jethro Tull sound, especially when the flute kicks in. Tinaiker’s solo seems a bit constrained within the song’s boundaries which isn’t always a good thing.

Cry is a beautiful acoustic number, marked by its simplicity which often is an overlooked virtue. Celibate is one of the best tracks on the album with Benegal’s performance and with Tinaiker finally taking his guitar out of the closet. Play sounds a bit too blissful yet it doesn’t have the required intensity to match the joyfulness.

Book of Dreams draws upon the table again, which surprisingly doesn’t seem to be out of place. Just like the title suggests, Book of Dreams ends with a dreamy outro. Pretty Child is picked up from the band’s previous avatar Rock Machine’s album The Second Coming.

While the band may not have pleased some of their die hard fans with their change in musical direction the band would have surely developed new fans. The fact that the band actually flew down to Los Angeles to record the album should explain how seriously the band cared about the production quality, which wasn’t up to the mark at the time in India. One really wishes the premier Indian Rock band would have gotten things kicking from here on but the band slowy faded away this album resulting into dozens of ‘theories of the band’ current status.