Rock with it

Mocaine at a live show in Mumbai

There is something about straight-up rock music that grabs you by the guts like no other form of music can. It has this visceral quality that other genres like electronica find hard to replicate. Jangling guitars, thrashing drums and a groovy baseline - all come together to form a recipe for music that can fill up a room and make listeners bob their heads up and down. That's what Delhi-based Mocaine has done with its new album, The Birth of Billy Munro, which has 11 songs spread over 43 minutes that tell the story of a person who is undergoing a mental breakdown.

Each track begins with a voice clip that takes this narrative forward, before the band breaks into the song. The story is set in the American south, and there is a deeply menacing quality to the titular character, who doesn't seem to be the sort of person you'd want to sit at a café and have a cup of coffee with. He's lost his newly-wedded wife and struggles to come to grips with the loss, unleashing his anguish on the world at large instead of dealing with it on his own.

But it's the accompanying music that plays the starring role in this album. It takes us back to a time when bands would simply get up on stage, plug in their instruments and burst out songs instead of relying on fancy gadgets. This kind of a sound will never die out, no matter how many technological advancements are made in music, because, like we said, it has a visceral quality that is impossible to replicate.

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