Sticking to the original format from Drishyam, Papanasam’s soundtrack too has just two vocal tracks. Yeya En Koottikkaaraa is almost a throwback to Ghibran’s debut soundtrack from four years back, a thoroughly endearing folksy tune that is arranged with matching finesse – particularly loved the percussion and the flute sounds (keyboard-generated?). Singing by Malavika Anilkumar is spot on, it is only Sundar Narayana Rao’s rendition that doesn’t entirely work for me. Composer gets Hariharan for the second song Vinaa Vinaa. A dark, pensive track whose melody often runs the risk of getting tedious but is lifted very well by the veteran singer and Ghibran’s own orchestration that makes excellent use of strings, that dramatic second interlude especially so.
That slight Uttama Villain hangover aside (there are bits which reminded me of the Guru Shishya piece from UV), theme song is quite nicely done, highlighted by the rich layering of violins. Among the other instrumental pieces, my favourites are A Sinking Car and This is Me (Suyambulingam) – former for its brilliant use of strings and pitching, building up the intrigue (it helps that I can mentally picture the scene to which this is going to be set, based on the Malayalam version); the latter for its tone of finality about it, the anthemic touch; should also work beautifully in the movie. Kill for Life and The Police Investigation do feature some theatrical strings segments, but are predominantly of a situational nature that should work with the visuals than as audio tracks. The Bond of Family is the only one that deviates from the suspenseful sound, turning out to be a soulful piece like its title indicates.
Papanasam. Ghibran’s soundtrack has some good music that will fit right into the movie’s narrative, but it still ranks lower among his recent works in Tamil. Probably for the right reason too, this movie isn’t as musical as some of his other projects of late.
Music Aloud Rating: 7.5/10
Top Recos: Yeya En Koottikkaaraa, Vinaa Vinaa, Papanasam Theme
