The past comes back to haunt six friends in upcoming thriller Hide & Seek, as youthful Christmas hijinks catch up with them twelve years later–with chilling consequences. Directed by Sean Arranha, the film stars Purab Kohli (Rock On!!) and Arjan Bajwa (Fashion) among others and music directors Chirantan Bhatt and Gourov Dasgupta have put together a soundtrack that should add to the high-energy and intense feel of the film.
The album opens with Jingle Bells, which, as the title implies, plays off of the traditional American Christmas song ‘Jingle Bells’. On first listen the combination of the classic ‘Jingle Bells’ with a strong Punjabi feel is rather unsettling but the gleeful beat and humorous vocal performance by Krishna should win you over pretty quickly. The Jingle Bells Remix picks up the pace even further for the dance floor and might well stick around as a Christmas party classic for the next few years.
Next up is Kaise Jiyu, also sung by Krishna. It’s fairly standard power ballad, a type of song that has been showing up more and more often on soundtracks since Rock On!! helped bring rock music into the mainstream of Bollywood. Western drum kit mixes with synthesizers and wailing rock guitars to support Krishna’s heartfelt vocals. The remix isn’t anything special and it gets rid of all the rock elements, leaving Krishna’s vocals on a dance beat.
Maula is by far the highlight of the album. Sung by Suraj Jagan, late of the band Chakraview, ‘Maula’ has shades of high-voltage 1980s arena rock, as perfected by bands like Bon Jovi and Guns’n’Roses. Not everyone will enjoy the straight-ahead rock feel of Suraj’s voice in the song but fans of the genre should enjoy it.
Moving us from rock to dance is the title track Hide & Seek, sung by Jojo. The driving beat of the song and the intensity of Jojo’s performance make this a track that is better suited to the dance floor than for sitting and listening. It should fit well with the action scenes in the film.
Finally, the album closes out with a song sung by Chirantan Bhatt, Friday Night, which put this reviewer in mind of a joke from the film 99 which referenced guys from New Delhi who drive around blasting bhangra remixes. Like the title implies, the lyrics list out everything that’s fun to do on a Friday night and giving a firm endorsement to getting “everybody to the disco” on the choruses. While it’s not a song you can take seriously, it does have the feel of something everybody would enjoy late on a Friday night. The remix distills the essence of the song to its purest form and should definitely be something people would enjoy late on a Friday night – or rather, early on Saturday morning.
Overall, the album sounds more like a Hollywood soundtrack, in which the songs are very dependent on the situations in the film, than a traditional Bollywood soundtrack but there is a nice variety of songs and the mix of rock and dance is novel and enjoyable, with Suraj Jagan’s ‘Maula’ and Krishna’s ‘Jingle Bells’ standing out as the best tracks.
