Living in an era where listeners have the freedom to make three seconds snap judgments of your music, putting new songs out there for a fledgling band requires nerves of steel if anything. Auj the Band, the young and rising rock band from Karachi, after winning Pepsi Battle of the Bands season 4, had all of us waiting for new music. We knew they had been working on their first album – but we had been patiently waiting for their songs, when this week, they finally dropped a single ‘Nawazish’ from their first album.
‘Nawazish’ is an instant anthem – a sound completely new and unique from what we are used to listening to, a love song charting its journey from falling in love to inevitable heartbreak, with soulful lyrics that perfectly fall to the rhythm of the music. The band, it seems, even when working in the most modest proportions to make this love song truly daunting, still manages to exude a disarming charm with the music video. Featuring Anoushay Abbasi alongside the band, the music video is all things dark, gloomy, and making us think of the message hiding behind those lyrics and actions.
With heavy vocals, beautiful guitar renditions – and even better musical transitions, ‘Nawazish’ hits all the right spots for our new favorite ‘love song’ while being so much more than just a love song dealing with the emotions and heartbreak. The song isn’t so much looking back as it is trudging forward – acknowledging the impracticality and villainy of love gone wrong in a magical way.
The expectations from Auj after winning Pepsi Battle of the bands had been high, and it is good to see that the band is making those expectations come true. ‘Nawazish’ looks like the first of many tracks we’d be adding to our playlist from the band!