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Yash’s much-awaited comeback after four long years was always going to come with sky-high expectations. Honestly, after Pushpa, if I had expectations from any South Indian film delivering a banger music album, it had to be this one! And honestly, the album has not disappointed me much, though it has some fumbles, but most parts fire! Toxic’s soundtrack is an entire buffet of music – Hindi pop-rock, EDM hybrids, soulful reprises, English crossovers, background theme scores. I mean, you name it, and you have it in this album!
However, this is not your typical album for a soulful alone time! If Yash has promised a fairy tale for grown-ups, then Vishal Mishra and Ravi Basrur have understood the assignment, bringing the perfect bedtime lullabies for adults! It is rage, fire, angst, and desperation all mixed into a cocktail that hits you the perfect amount. But it should come with a warning that an extra shot with this album and you might pass out!
Toxic album with 8 songs and 2 background themes, composed by Ravi Basrur and Vishal Mishra, delivers a wild, genre-bending ride. Blending dark, melancholic soul ballads with heavy strings, EDM’s, intense synth arrangements, and opera-infused themes, the album perfectly mirrors the dark universe of the film.
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Check out the music review of Toxic, dissecting each song with its highs, lows, and how it might impact the film eventually.
- Song: Tabaahi
- Singer & Music: Vishal Mishra
- Lyrics: Raj Shekhar
Raj Shekhar is a man who has won me over again and again with soulful lyrics. Be it when he wrote, “Dil hi rakhne ko kabhi, upar upar se sahi, keh dena haan…yun hi!” Or recently, when he wrote, “saare jag mein kaise, hum phirein maare maare, laut aane do humko dil mein phir se tumhare!” So when, I heard Tabaahi, I was surprised to the level of shock, just for the passion of the song! That quite doesn’t go with Raj Shekhar’s calm and warm love ballads! But he takes a turn and how! You might argue that the Tabaahi – Barbaadi trope is not new, but it is still infectious!
Vishal Mishra opens this album, exactly the way a Yash entry song should – loud, brooding, and built for a huge screen. The hook is instant, the kind that gets stuck in your head after one listen, and Mishra’s voice carries just the right amount of grit to sell the chaos this title promises!
- Song: Madhosh
- Singer: Siddharth Basrur
- Music: Tanishk Bagchi, Arslan Nizami & Faheem Abdullah
- Lyrics: Arslan Nizami & Syed Murad Gilani
Tanishk Bagchi, Arslan Nizami, and Faheem Abdullah bring a mood with their music here. Siddharth Basrur’s husky delivery gives the track a late-night, intoxicated quality that suits the hook Madhosh perfectly. However, the composition takes its time to build, and listeners hoping for another Tabaahi-style instant hook might find the pace testing their patience. The lyrics follow the Tabaahi route only with the central hook being a metaphor way too many times, but this time, it is missed! I would still suggest you put it on repeat mode, and it might grow!
- Song: Waqt
- Singer & Music: Vishal Mishra
- Lyrics: Kaushal Kishore
This is where the album takes its biggest creative swing. Waqt does not go as expected. In fact, it goes heavier on Electronic Music and trippy beats. The production sounds layered, and that shadows the emotional weight of Kaushal Kishore’s lyrics! The bittersweet core and the fusion of a traditional romantic tune with an electronic backbone, though, is an experiment that might work with today’s generation! For me, the hybrid occasionally fights for an identity and swallows the softer, more intimate verses as a whole. This wants to be both a club track and a heartbreak ballad. And I quite love the ambition here!
- Song: Chingariyaan
- Singer: Jonita Gandhi
- Music: Vishal Mishra
- Lyrics: Raj Shekhar
Jonita Gandhi’s form is infectious for a long time, and it stays the same. She injects sparkle and sass into a track that’s built for a good seductive choreography piece. Raj Shekhar’s lyrics are light, flirtatious, and refreshingly uncomplicated after the heaviness of the first three tracks. This song has all the elements to be Dil ko Hazaar baar roka, but I am not sure if it would become one! It is basically fun while it lasts, but I’m not sure if it is composed to last as well!
- Song: His Aura Hits You
- Singers: Vishal Mishra & Santhosh Venky
- Music: Ravi Basrur
- Rap: Airaa Udupi
- Lyrics: Airaa Udupi
The album starts getting trippier, and Ravi Basrur’s background score sensibilities elevate this into a proper anthem – all swagger, destruction, and menace. Airaa Udupi’s rap verse adds a gritty texture that gives the track real edge, and the writing matches the aura of this film! It is more a vibe than a song.
- Song: Peek A Boo
- Singer, Music & Lyrics: Vishal Mishra
Vishal Mishra goes solo on singing, music, and lyrics here, and the English-crossover ambition is admirable. A high-energy track clearly designed for the international crowd. It is too much style and lighter on the substance, but still manages to create ample curiosity to win over your driving playlist at night!
- Song: Toxic
- Singer: Hanita Bhambri
- Music: Vishal Mishra
- Lyrics: Hanita Bhambri
The title track finally gives the album an English vocal that feels fully at home. Hanita Bhambri, writing and singing her own material, brings an intimacy and control that’s genuinely impressive. This title track will be the pick of the season, understated yet confident to reach the finish line and win!
- Song: Waqt (Soul Version)
- Singer & Music: Vishal Mishra
- Lyrics: Kaushal Kishore
Today, no one is doing reprises and covers as well as Vishal Mishra! You peel Waqt’s electronic dance skin, and the version has its soul back! The melody breathes here! It’s the more emotionally satisfying version of the two, proving the song’s bones were strong all along. But just don’t binge them back to back.
- Song: Father & Son – Theme Music
- Singers: Diana Ankudinova & Airaa Udupi
- Music: Ravi Basrur
Let it take a moment to appreciate Ravi Basrur’s vision with Toxic! It is larger than life and yet grounded! He brings a genuine gravity and intensity with this theme music! Without any Papa Meri Jaan cliche! Diana Ankudinova’s vocals add a haunting opera-ish tone that hints this might be a show-stealer scene in the film! The most cinematic piece of this album for sure! And this score will surely hit harder with its audio version!
- Song: Blood on Blood – Theme Music
- Music: Ravi Basrur
Toxic album closes with a punch, a piece clearly built for a showdown! It is tense, trippy, and no nonsense, no distraction track, setting the tone of the film brilliantly!
Toxic’s soundtrack is ambitious in scope, and mostly brilliant in execution, but a little dicey in impact. Vishal Mishra remains the album’s USP, but Ravi Basrur’s theme pieces do serious heavy lifting for the film’s tone. I still feel that this album genuinely needed one song that could bring it all together – the angst, the mood, the range, and the vision of Toxic! Still, it works for most of the songs and the themes, and that surely is a big win!
Check out the jukebox here.
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