Engeyum Kaadhal (Music review) – Harris JAYARAJ

The title song is built like Eric Clapton’s beautiful ballad, Wonderful Tonight, but it is more in the feel/genre. The song on its own is amazing, with Aalaap Raju’s touching vocals and carefully assembled, enchanting arrangements. Naresh Iyer rocks through Thee illai, a song reminiscent of some random track from Minnale, but in slow motion, while the obviously in-your-face Jackson’ness of Nangai is annoying. But, it is no doubt an instantly catchy song with some funky ‘local’ interludes! Lolita and Dhimu dhimu (Orange’s Chilipiga), by the always dependable Karthik, ride almost on his voice and the bewitching tunes that Harris cleverly assembles from his stock and makes it seem like new! Bathing at Cannes is oddly titled, starts exactly like Will Smith’s dialog with the fellow aliens working with Tommy Lee Jones in the post office, in Men In Black 2, but uses the most familiar hip-hop idioms to create a decent mish-mash. Nenjil nenjil rounds off the soundtrack in impressive style – Harish Raghavendra and Chinmayi’s fantastic vocals, Karky’s soaked-in-love melancholic lyrics and a tune that tantalizingly touches upon Charukesi raga at places! Engeyum Kaadhal is quite ‘safe’ like Orange, but as a package, this one works significantly better and wonderfully well!