Producer: Uday Shah, Umesh Bagul
Director: Hansal Mehta
Cast: Kay Kay, Prashant Narayanan, Jaya Seal, Sri Vallabh Vyas, Naved Aslam
Music: Viju Shah
Singers: Sadhana Sargam, Shaan, Asha Bhosle, Alka Yagnik

Hansal Mehta has roped in two under used talents in bollywood Viju Shah and Amitabh Verma for the music of his underworld saga ‘Chaal’. Viju Shah is not a man we hear often in bollywood circles. This choosy music director never rushes through his compositions. The same holds true for Amitabh verma. When both these gifted talents meet the result is obviously a nice and fresh musical treat for the audience.

This techno friendly music director kick starts his musical journey with the title track. This song has five versions including a KK rendition. Music is swift and interwoven with the sound of tabla and synthesizer. The first version is short whereas the extended version that follows is ten minutes long. It blends the sound of piano and chorus perfectly with the fast beats of this track. Amitabh Verma narrates the story through his lines. On the whole this opening number can create some ripples in today’s music scene.

Asha Bhonsle could never go wrong. And Viju Shah makes the most out of this talented singer’s voice. ‘Dil Jhanjhale Jaane-Jaana’ is a fast rhythmic dance track where Asha Bhonsle shows her vocal brilliance. She changes her voice from soft, mellow to scary, husky according to the demand of the song. Her strange voice adds to the scary mood of the track. Music arrangement is extraordinary and novel. There is no two opinion about the fate of this number.

Viju Shah goes a bit backwards with the romantic track ‘Chup Chap’. This number has two versions one by Shaan and the other by Sadhna Sargam. The first version is the mellower of the two. Shaan’s romantic voice flows through this track accompanied by Sadhna’s soft background vocals. This one scores over Sadhna’s solo version.

‘Gum Sum’ gathers its inspiration from ‘Apni Yaadon Ki’ from the movie ‘Pyaar Ishq Aur Mohabbat’. The similarity ends as soon as Alka starts her crooning in an exceptionally sadder note. Flute plays a major role in this extremely moving musical composition.

This well composed musical feast ends with three unique instrumental tracks. The first one is ‘Padmini’s Theme’, a piano track that takes its lead from the title song of this movie. It is both intimidating and scary at the same time.

Next track ‘Deceit’ sets out as background music of science fiction, but later joins ‘Padmini’s Theme’ and starts off from where it ended sans Piano. This instrumental is of international quality.

Strangely the last instrumental piece ‘Omerta- The Silence’ is the loudest track of this album. This energetic, fizzy track comes close to the title track in theme.

On the whole, this is a fine musical experimentation by the gifted composer Viju Shah. There is no doubt about the fate of this album. With this kind of intriguing music this album may have people queuing in for a copy.