Rock & Roll Jihad

Salman Ahmad of Junoon | Format: MP3 Download

Product Details

• Original Release Date: June 1, 2010
• Label: Nameless Sufi Music
• Copyright: 2010 Nameless Sufi Music
• Total Length: 54:44
• Genres:
• ASIN: B003JFVB8I
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #295,431 Paid in MP3 Albums (See Top 100 Paid in MP3 Albums)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3.0 out of 5 stars Poor first half, but exciting second half., February 16, 2011

By 

V. J. Gurr "Rufflemylimpskin" (Folkestone, England) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Rock & Roll Jihad (Audio CD)

So perhaps the immediate striking feature is that the first 5 tracks feature English lyrics. I really enjoy listening to music in other languages, partly because it keeps a huge amount of mystery, as you have no idea what they're singing about. Salman's strange decision to sing this way detroys any illusions, especially as the words are hardly profound. There might as well not be any words, as you would have heard them all before on countless other records.

As for the music in the first 5 songs, honestly I think the recordings sound soul-less. Although Sufi rock is Western inspired, I feel that Salman has almost completely abandoned his Pakistani roots to adopt Western music completely. It all adds up to make me believe Ahmad is becoming sell-out.

The second half of the album is a collection of live recordings of old Junoon songs (as far as I can tell, there may be new songs). I have to say, this half is very impressive. The tracks themselves are fantastic, but to hear the band improvising and really getting the crowd involved... it makes for an exciting and refreshing half hour. I can only assume that these are more recent recordings since the band's split, from the sounds of the lead vocals (most probably Salman Ahmad).

If only Salman Ahmad had stuck to his forward thinking Sufi Rock sound, instead of trying to impress Western audiences with these half-arsed tunes.

As for the 'made to order' Amazon production, it really isn't a bad job. They claim to burn 16-bit audio to the CD-R, and as far as I can tell, the quality is top notch. Packaging seems a bit cheap, and obviously not everything is machine handled. The sleeve was badly folded and I spotted fingerprints on the underside of the CD. But a quick clean up and it was ready to go.