Motihari Brigade’s Problematic Is a Bold Rock Album That Challenges the Digital Age
These days it’s like we are being controlled and fed by what we want to see and like on the Internet. Like those moments where you feel like your smartphone is slowly turning your brain into absolute mush? You just check it out, you open an app to check the weather, and suddenly you are trapped in a two-hour loop of watching people do silly dances on TikTok, then you’re like whew time’s gone, then within some few minutes you’re on another media app watching funny memes. If you deep it, you’d see how the digital world loves to feed us a steady diet of easy entertainment, keeping us quiet, cozy, and completely obedient.
It’s like the algorithms are trying to do all our thinking for us and making us feel somehow useless. But to those who are ready to snap out of the digital trance and inject some serious, old-school defiance back into your brain, ready up your speakers, for this beautiful journey we about to embark. An independent rock band called Motihari Brigade just dropped a massive new album called “Problematic” on June 25, 2026, which happens to be the birthday of the ultimate anti-authoritarian writer, George Orwell. Coincidence? Absolutely not.
Motihari Brigade makes what they call rock-and-roll thoughtcrime for totally independent minds. The project is the brainchild of Eric Winston, a guitarist, singer, and songwriter who handles the writing and the heavy guitar work. The band actually takes its name from Motihari, India, which is the literal birthplace of George Orwell. So what the band does is, instead of writing simple pop songs about trucks or standard breakups, Eric pulls his inspiration straight from the big ideas of deep thinkers like Orwell, Aldous Huxley, and Socrates.
This entire album was recorded by real, flesh-and-blood human musicians using genuine internal organs. In fact, the band jokes that even ChatGPT managed to get an early copy of the record and admitted it could never come up with something this wild in a million prompts, hahaha. Are your speakers ready? Well let’s take dive into the tracks and see why you should place this album at the top of your playlist.
Welcoming listeners to a grand opening is the track “Cowboy Armageddon“. I love how the album kicks off with a track that feels like the opening scene of a dusty, dystopian science fiction movie. It sets the stage for the chaos to come, introducing a world where everything is on the brink of falling apart, wrapped up in a gritty rock wrapper. And if you look at our world today, this track should be played everywhere, cos it’s like that what happening. We’ve lost touch with what made us human, now people don’t care again, and it’s like our world is a ticking time bomb.
Then comes the title track “Problematic”. This track barges in and drops a heavy, infectious groove right out of the gate. The message here establishes the main philosophical theme of the entire album. It tells the listener that in an age of total conformity, the most powerful thing you can do is ask questions and be labeled “problematic” by the people in charge. I mean do you get it? It’s a deep conversation, when people in power begin to sense you’re wanting answers to everything, the begin to find ways to get rid of you, cos they think you’re a problem for them because of their dubious moves.
We are then introduced to this beautiful hilarious track “Chatbot Don’t Like It“. Well do they? This one is a hilarious and timely track that weaves a bunch of strange human and machine sounds together. The core message is a direct shot at artificial intelligence and the tech corporate bosses who control it. It looks at how our new robot masters want to clean up our language and thoughts, which is why Eric included a radio edit at the end of the album to bleep out a bad word the bots wouldn’t approve of.
This track “Save Ourselves” comes in and we are locked in emotionally. I love how the track shifts into a deeper, urgent question: where do we actually go when the rest of society has basically turned into one giant, conforming cult? Like where are you gonna go? Whom are you gonna report to? Who is gonna believe you when everyone seems to answer to that ond person above them? The song carries a powerful message of self-reliance, telling us that no political leader or tech billionaire is coming to rescue us. We have to save ourselves and it’s true, all they do is for their selfish interests and their intentions are of pure greed!
On this track “Not What They Seem“, Eric dives straight into a Socratic exploration with this menacing, slow-burning rocker. The song is all about pulling back the curtain on mass media and propaganda. It warns the listener that the official stories we are fed every single day are almost never what they seem on the surface and it’s true. If you look at what’s happening around our world, you’d realize how they are sensitizing the truths. They don’t want us to know the truth, because they know it will be our freedom, yet they preach we are free, but are free indeed?
“The Great Refusal” hit us with a razor-edged guitar riff, an acrobatic bassline, and a thumping drumbeat, bringing the energy to a boiling point. It’s a proud declaration of non-compliance, capped off with the brilliant warning that karma is going to be a total bitch to the people pulling the strings and it’s gonna happen one day. If you look at the album closely, you’d realize how the arrangements are important, you can see each song continuing the storyline and each being a successor to the other.
Then comes these tracks “Heedless of the Storm” & “Ten Years Time“. I love how these two tracks are connected together to form a mini rock opera called The Hubris March. Eric de-tuned his Fender Stratocaster and turned his amplifiers up to a ridiculous volume, creating a massive rumble of feedback that sounds exactly like a battlefield. Together, these songs explore the tragic, endless cycle of politicians driving the world toward war, followed by the terrible, traumatic aftermath that regular citizens have to suffer through a decade later. These are things people don’t see it, to them yeah our country is winning the war here and there, but when these politicians are no more, the citizens are the ones who suffer the aftermath of war.
To every war there’s a “Fortunate Son” and this track right after the war opera, the band launches into an explosive, high-energy cover of the classic Creedence Clearwater Revival anthem. It’s a fantastic choice that drives home the earlier message about run-away militarism and how the wealthy elite never have to send their own kids to fight. “Pleasure Craft” welcomes you aboard a cruise ship of immediate gratification, and it might be the sneakiest song on the record. The message focuses on how a prison of comfort sits right inside our pockets. It argues that tyrants don’t need to threaten us with pain anymore; they just keep us docile and distracted with endless digital entertainment and instant clicks.
As things start to come to an end, “Problematic – Reprise” returns. On this track the signature heavy groove returns to bring the album in for a smooth landing. The lyrics loop around with the catchy chant, “I don’t know but I’ve been told, I’ve been told but I don’t know,” reminding us to never just blindly accept information. “Someone’s Dream” closes out the album with a beautiful, haunting track set against a deep space environment. It’s a peaceful, poetic look at our legacy, wondering how humanity will be remembered once our current tech-obsessed society fades away into history. There’s a last track titled “Chatbot Don’t Like It-Radio” which is the official closer to the album.
To me Motihari Brigade has delivered a brilliant, guitar-heavy rock record that isn’t afraid to poke a stick at the modern tech world. It’s smart, funny, and incredibly well-crafted and a masterpiece of art. The album “Problematic” is up and running, go grab your headphones, turn the volume up to a dangerous level, and start being beautifully problematic today! For if we don’t save ourselves, no one will!
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