After almost a four-year long break, the Demonstealer is back with his funny hard rock outfit – Workshop, with their second studio release Made Love To The Dragon. Post the release of their first studio album – Khooni Murga in 2009, the Bombay band has witnessed a couple of line-up changes with Devesh Dayal and Aditya Kadam replacing Rajshri Battacharya and Riju Dasgupta, on guitars and bass respectively. Much like their previous album, the band mostly uses comical, lyrical themes to tickle your funny bone; however the guitar tracks through the album, song compositions and the production quality in general have gone up several notches. My only real concern with the album is that Sahil Makhija sounds like every man but himself in most of the songs, from sounding like Eric Cartman in ‘Down to Dahisar’ to impersonating a constipated middle eastern man in the ‘Bunty aur Mallika (Habibi Mix)’ the demon, has truly discovered his vocal depth with this album.

The album kicks off with the title track, ‘Made Love to the Dragon’ which slowly eases you into Workshop’s scheme of things with hard rock/pop composition, flipped out lyrics, and sweetened guitar work. The second song, ‘Down to Dahisar’ mirthfully captures the essence of living in suburban Bombay, and is a hostile reminder of the skyrocketing real estate rates in the city. ‘Bhoot Bungla’, with its evocative riffs, haunting vocals, reggae ghost narrator, and other random spooky elements makes it a really fascinating track. The fourth song of the album, ‘Munni Jawan vs Sheila Badnaam’ is probably the only song in the album I didn’t get hooked onto despite playing it on loop several times. The next track, ‘Gajanad Dhige’ is a hilarious portrayal of the stereotypical small town Indian man in quintessential workshop style, and is perhaps my favourite track of the album along with ‘She Came’ which is a beautifully composed satirical narrative on arranged marriages in India and the adverse effects it has on women and their needs. The seventh track of the album, ‘Naagin Ki Nazaar’ is an outrageously funny song to the say the least, the parallels drawn between the ‘Naagin’ and a certain part of the male anatomy is hysterical, and the lyrics will surely make any first time listener laugh out loud. The next song, ‘Blues Motion’ has a ‘metal meets the blues’, ‘demon sings the jazz’ feel to it, with the signature chorus melody associated with bluesy songs (if I may call them so). A re-mastered version (habibi mix) of that epic track from Khooni Murga – ‘Bunty aur Mallika’ feels like a last minute add-on to this 9-track album, however I must add that the obscure vocals will in all likelihood, make you chuckle.

In a nutshell, Workshop’s second coming – Made Love To The Dragon is a more than worthy successor to their rib-tickling debut effort Khooni Murga. Hamza ‘Hamzoid’ Kazi, carries on the good work from the previous album and provides the band a sturdy foundation to work with. Aditya Kadam fills in the void created by Riju with consummate ease, while Devesh Dayal is in top form through the album and it’s really not hard to decipher why he’s tipped as the most exciting young guitarist in the Indian music scene.

Musically, the album is way superior to its predecessor and I would definitely recommend it to everyone. Thanks to Sahil’s marketing genius, there are plenty of ways you can get hold of the album, there’s a cash on delivery option for the physical copy, you can download the digital copy online, apple users can buy the album from i-tunes and fellow Nokia users like myself can download the entire album absolutely free from the Nokia music store. Yes, you heard it right.

Since, I didn’t pay for the album I can’t say it was worth my money, but it was definitely worth my time and it was definitely worth deleting Path of Totality to accommodate Made Love to The Dragon in my phone.