Live review from Compilation CD 5 Launch Party A:
Setlist
1. Intro
2. Here I Come
3. Rock the Party
4. Lard Agai Bard
5. Man on My Own
6. Goodbye
Perhaps it is the glitz of the Hard Rock Cafe, but for a band to spend the first few minutes after they’ve been announced tuning and sound checking just does not seem right. However, with that out of the way, Intellectual Morons did what it does best - whip the crowd into a frenzy with their powerful rap metal… It is sometimes quite quite easy to forget that the backbone of the band consists of only one guitar, one bass and the drum, the liberal of overdrive and clever bass riffs and fills creating a sound that belies the band’s instruments. The set was delivered with enthusiasm which translated well to the audience. If pressed, I would sincerely suggest to the band… get a tuner!!
– Thayli
Live review from Underground Heavy #5
Setlist:
1. Here I Come
2. Rock the Party
3. My Life
4. Goodbye
5. We Will Rock You
6. [Encore] Here I Come
If Trash21 hinted at funk, these guys wore it on their sleeves. They follow, quite closely, a Faith No More/Primus sound, with equally strong metal, funk and rap influences, and were the most original band of the night (by a good distance). Their sound is bass-heavy, and yet has plenty of levity, provided by the guitars. Good funk guitars typically have a persona with a ‘sense of humour’ (it’s very difficult to express exactly what I mean, but if funk guitars were a person, they would constantly have a very amused, slightly sneering smile on their face), and guitarist Sarad’s tunes definitely have that quality. Because they are heavy without actually being ‘metal’ they had the advantage of giving the audience something they hadn’t heard all night – consequently, they got a huge response from the crowd.
The rapping, I’m not a big fan of, but it’s the kind that doesn’t instantly antagonise people who don’t like rap. It’s good and consistent and uses the looping rhythm of funky metal very well, and that’s good enough. There’s a bit too much Hendrix in the compositions, though, and this can be overpowering at times – like withRock the Party which just sounds like a slight variation on Purple Haze. My Life had a guest vocalist, Sandeep, called onto stage who supplemented the rap with fantastic, more traditional vocals. There were also the gloriously distorted with the epic feel, but no overt force – something like Soundgarden. The lyrics were really cheesy, but the other elements were so good that you didn’t mind it. Goodbye had very much of an AC/DC sound, but the solo adopted the idly probing style of Zappa. They also did a good interpretation of We Will Rock You, adding (along with other things) some pretty good, non-cheesy rap to it as well. The demand for them was so big, that it actually merited an encore, and they redid the very funky-with-bits-of-classic-rock-sprinkledHere I Come to end a really awesome night of solid music, and some of the best audience participation that I’ve seen for a long time.
– Shashwati
Performances:
