After a successful Santosham, director Dasaradh is back into reckoning with Sambaram starring Nitin and Nikita. Teja produces this movie under his Chitram Movies banner. Nitin, who is riding high on the success of his last two movies Jayam and Dil, awaits a hat trick with this movie. Nikita, who debuted with Hai and starred in Kalyana Ramudu, is waiting for a major hit. Will Sambaram give them a reason to rejoice?

This is RP Patnaik's second movie for Dasarath and third movie for Nitin. Sambaram is supposed to be a love story and the soundtrack, strangely, has just one duet. All the remaining songs are mainly solos, of which, most of them are sung by RP himself. Sirivennela pens two songs in the album and the remaining seven songs are worded by Kula Sekhar. RP hasn't had a hit score so far this year. So does Sambaram make him and his fans happy? Read on -

1. Pattudalatho
An excellent inspiring number this one. Clearly, lyrics by Sirivennela dominate the entire song, which are immensely motivational. After a mellowed yet beautiful rendition of Saahasam Swaasaga [Okkadu], Mallikharjun sings this motivational number with a lot of verve. Though RP's orchestration is simple [especially in the interludes], he sets the song to a nice tune, letting the lyrics and the singer [Mallikharjun] do the magic.

2. Nee Sneham
This short pathos number is sung by RP himself. Its sad that his rendition and voice modulation don't do complete justice to what the song demands. Though the song is good, the same cannot be said about the way it is sung. Kula Sekhar writes this one.

3. Pitta Nadum
The orchestration in this song reminds us of various songs like Ameerpeta [Eeswar], Nindu Godaari [Nuvvu Leka Nenu Lenu], Aata Kaavala [Annaiah] and the tune sounds like a modified version of Calcutta pan song from Raghavendra [Prabhas, Anshu, Shwetha Agarwal]. However, this song has all the ingredients to be a chartbuster with right amount of promotion, good picturization and choreography. Kula Sekhar writes the lyrics and RP & Usha lend their voices for this number. Usha's fans are in for a major disappointment as this is the only number she sings in this album.

4. Devudichhina
This 'I-just-realized-I-am-in-love' song is sung by Tippu and is written by Kula Sekhar. Tippu sounds different and good here compared to his earlier songs. The orchestration in this song, again, is typical of RP. However you might end up humming this song after repeated hearing.

5. Erra Gulabi
This funny number with folk beats is sung by Ravi Varma, Mallikharjun and RP and is written by Kula Sekhar. This one's about a bunch of guys behind a few gals. A routine RP style song.

6. Premanu Panchina
RP sings this melodious number. This song has a good tabla base beat throughout but the music in the interludes is commonplace. Kula Sekhar's lyrics describe and talk about prema in terms of prema itself (premanu panchina premanu, premanu penchina premanu…). Confusing, just a little, is it? I guess that's what happens when you are to pen a love song trying to bring in some sort of variety differentiating it from a million of its likes.

7. Madhuram
This short song is composed just using a keyboard and serves as a good slow number. Such songs present a demanding challenge to the singer to captivate us and make us lose ourselves in his voice and Rajesh almost succeeds in his task. Lyrics by Kula Sekhar talk about the gaiety and grief of love.

8. Enduke Ila
Yet another beautiful song by Sirivennela. If Santosham had a marvelous Ne tolisariga, Sambaram has this number filling in that slot. Dasaradh is familiar with the pristine stream that flows out of Sirivennela's pen and this song stands a testimony of that fact again. The guy, after losing the love of his girl, tries to come out of it and Sirivennala conveys a good point in this song, which is summed up in this one line - Chenthe unna sontham kaavani nindinchekanna, nanne nenu velivesukoni dooram avutunna. RP sings this one and you have to overlook his style of crooning to completely enjoy the melody he creates here with ample support from Sirivennela.

9. Nakkathoka
An ordinary number sung by Ravi Varma, Sreeram, Balaji and written by Kula Sekhar with splashes of 'attempted' humor interspersed here and there. Its more a situational song about the kith and kin of the guy trying to get him married to the girl of his choice soon.

Overall, the album has all kinds of songs to satisfy RP's fans. There are enough melodies and folk songs. There's an excellent inspirational number and oh yeah there's a mandatory hero introduction song too (phew!). While Sirivennela's work is as fragrant as a rose, Kula Sekhar's work remains as just another flower in the garden.

RP, after a series of mediocre albums since Nee Sneham, is back into action with this album. Though the album has many good tunes, a typical RP style orchestration and/or RP style singing mars the beauty of some of the songs. If RP tries to induce new beats and orchestration into his compositions and tries to cut down his singing spree then there should be no stopping for his success, which by the way is again at his threshold after this album.

Sreya's Picks: Pattudalatho, Enduke Ila, Premanu Panchina

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