Songs at the end.
Raghu Dixit makes his Tamil debut (not sure if his song from Quick Gun Murugan was part of the Tamil soundtrack) with the fun title song of Aviyal. The composer doesn’t try anything particularly innovative here, sticking to the effective folksy dance format that Antony Dasan has little trouble rendering well. The “retro-styled song in a contemporary packaging” combination is managed well by composer no. 2 Shammeer Sultan (also lyricist) in Masura Pochey. Gantasaala Raju is a good choice on vocals too, he is very convincing in his yesteryear-ish act. Javed Riaz, another composer for the movie, does the instrumental piece called Fight Till Finish, clearly a background piece that does not offer much value as a standalone audio track.
Vishal Chandrashekhar is the soundtrack’s lead composer, both in number and standard of output. Kaatrodu has a lovely melody that is given an ambient, lounge-ish treatment (excellent use of guitars) and is handled on vocals by the fabulous-sounding Anandi Chandrashekhar. Centred as it is on a delightful musical instrument, Many Moods of Accordion sounded promising even from its title, and Vishal does deliver a beauty here, one that carries a dominantly European sound and understandably goes through multiple mode shifts. Vishal also arranges and programmes Antony Dasan’s composition Cinemaakaran where he sings about the travails of aspiring actors in Chennai (written by Mani Amuthavan). Nice listen this one too, helped by the flippant elements that Vishal contributes in the backdrop.
Aviyal. Engaging multi-composer soundtrack where Vishal Chandrashekhar takes top honours.
Music Aloud Rating: 7.5/10
Top Recos: Many Moods of Accordion, Kaatrodu, Aviyal
PS: Wonder what happened to Rajesh Murugesan’s compositions. Even if one were to assume that he has done the BGM, this soundtrack does have a couple of tracks that are presumably BGM pieces. Maybe there is something planned for a later release, a la Premam’s Malare. Maybe.
