Review: Tunes From The Big Belly – The Shakey Rays

It was a bit of a happy co-incidence that before I sat down to write this, I decided to check out Pitchfork’s take on the new Girls album (great record, by the way) and came across this interview with English music critic Simon Reymonds. You may or may not agree with Reynolds’s dismay at our increasing tendency to fetishize the music of our past. But it’s easy to see that he’s right about the increasing acceptance of bands that take their musical cues from decades past. Take a look at the indie buzz bands of recent years: LCD Soundsystem, Girls, MGMT, Destroyer, Male Bonding, Cymbals Eat Guitars, and current darlings Foster The People. Or you could just look at the hyper-referential nature of most indie album reviews. This isn’t a trend restricted to foreign shores, as evidenced by the popularity of avant-orchestral-cabaret-whatever band Peter Cat Recording Co. Another Indian band that falls under the same umbrella – and the reason I’m going on about this for so long – is Chennai alt-R&B act The Shakey Rays.

Like the aforementioned Girls and PCRC, The Shakey Rays display strong revivalist tendencies, without actually sounding like a tribute band. The core of the band is the songwriting duo of Dhruva Gautham and Vikram Kannan, who previously played together in Easy Street. Kannan was also a part of the exciting but now disbanded Chennai punk band No Safe Word (fronted by Kishore Krishna of Adam & The Fish Eyed Poets). Their debut album Tunes From The Big Belly (stream here) is a set of infectious, nostalgia-tinged tunes that evoke Chuck Berry and The Clash in equal parts. Kannan and Gautham strip-mine the back catalogues of ’60s record labels such as Stax, Motown and Chess Records for ideas and references. The Beatles, Marvin Gaye, Otis Redding, Muddy Waters, Ben Folds and Bob Dylan are among the diverse stylistic influences on this record, while the two also draw inspiration from post-punk bands like The Replacements and The Smiths.

‘Queen Bee On The Radio’ is an ode to celebrity crushes and pop-star obsessions that channels the Beatles and 1950s rock and roll. The Shakey Rays have no qualms about wearing their influences on their sleeves and the song features this charming, tongue-in-cheek homage – “I need you when I peep through a keyhole and watch an empty street/Move backwards and forwards to Diddley’s beat.” ‘This Is Where It All Begins’ is a rousing anthem full of hope and defiance, as the band takes a crack at the popular narrative that portrays the third world through the filters of pity and fear. “21st century papers still filled with fear and lies and hate/Everybody’s talking about the big bad end/But step out and look at all there is to celebrate,” they sing, as they stake a claim to their own future and reaffirm their faith in the healing power of love and music. They strike the same optimistic note on the insanely catchy ‘I’m Gonna Catch That Train’, a song about rejecting the past and moving on to newer things, both literally and metaphorically. The fears and insecurities that are part-and-parcel of falling in love form another common lyrical theme on the album (ref ‘Hard To Understand’, ‘No Secret’, ‘Late Night Tales’).

The Shakey Rays’ biggest strength is the dynamic of the singer-songwriter duo. Vikram and Dhruva both share a love for simple melodies, indelible hooks and beautiful vocal harmonies (CSNY are an obvious influence as well). They’re also capable of writing very memorable and multi-faceted lyrics, which definitely doesn’t hurt. The musical collage nature of their sound does lead to the occasional game of Name That Tune. The vocal melody on ‘Sleeping In The Back Of The Car’ drove me up the wall all day till I figured out which song it reminded me of (4 Non Blondes’ ‘What’s Up’), while the vocals on ‘Let’s Build A Home’ are a dead ringer for Crazy Horse-era Neil Young. But that’s a minor complaint compared to the satisfaction you get when the band manages to hit that sweet spot between the old and the new, taking these incredibly familiar sounds and reworking them to fit into a modern context. They’re not ‘retro’ these boys, they’re vintage.

Indiecision: B+

Stream Tunes From The Big Belly here.