With an extremely familiar, but not specifically pinpointable guitar strum – beyond conjuring Dire Straits – the title song, composed by Mohit and Rocky, makes for a rather familiar and friendly listen; simple and extremely hummable. Challeya, Babji, Main hoon badal and Jeene de too carry this nice blend, with a similar guitar base, with Challeya overlaid on a Punjabi flavor in the lyrics and that mildly bizarre, very brief utterances midway. Sajna’s tune (composed by Mohit and Prarthna Gehlot) along with Mohit’s vocals are haunting, particularly when heard from the context of the exotic, Buddhist chant-like orchestration, while Musafir has the crooner expressing his love rather lazily, in an off-beat, laid-back style. Uff yeh nazara is the most filmi tune of the album, but Mohit’s backgrounds make a huge difference. Silk Route’s traces show up strongly in Meri tarah and the almost conversationally folk’ish Mai ni meriye – all for the good. The best part of Mohit Chauhan’s debut album is that the entire collection of ten songs has a homogeneous feel, with not a single out-of-place note. That could also be the album’s undoing since it expects mature audiences – to understand the feel and appreciate that intelligently constructed homogeneity.
Keywords: Mohit Chauhan, Silk Route, Boondein, Fitoor
