{"id":35328,"date":"2013-12-07T10:42:23","date_gmt":"2013-12-07T15:42:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/?p=35328"},"modified":"2014-02-08T08:39:28","modified_gmt":"2014-02-08T13:39:28","slug":"amadeus-awad-schizanimus-ep-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/2013\/amadeus-awad-schizanimus-ep-review\/","title":{"rendered":"Amadeus Awad | Schizanimus<\/em>"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Alissa Ordabai<\/span>
\n– Senior Columnist —<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"Schizanimus\"Self-iteration has always been the biggest sin of rock songwriting. Some bands allow the same tune recur once in a while \u2013 rehashed and released under a different title. Switch around a few chords, slightly change the melody, write different lyrics, but everyone can still tell you are aiming to hit the same old spot. Think Jimmy Page\u2019s \u201cTea for One\u201d reanimating \u201cSince I\u2019ve Been Loving You\u201d. Although six years between the two sound-alikes became a respectable distance for having another go. Less able writers return to one of their lucky finds more frequently. Some — on each album. But no one does it in the space of one EP that only has three songs on it.<\/p>\n

Still, you\u2019ve got to admire Awad\u2019s instincts — standout \u201cNoir\u201d is indeed a great prog tune few would resist repeating \u2013 inspired, brilliantly written, and translucently clear. A kind of track that takes you back to your first sci-fi story when you were, say, 7 or 10, the one that suddenly lights up the humdrum of daily routine with an otherworldly, yet warmly human glow. The one that gives hope but also sends a reminder that no life can exist without tragedy, a lone star sending a signal from another galaxy \u2013 solemn, lucid, noble. Everything comes together organically in one breath \u2013 Awad\u2019s voice, his spare guitar parts, the kooky magic of the synth, and even his penchant for Middle Eastern motifs that here sound so unobtrusive they end up sitting perfectly with everything else. <\/p>\n

And as if to spoil this revelation the track that follows grasps to capture the same vibe, but comes though as a barren second-hand imitation. Although the main annoyance becomes not self-repetition, but \u2013 rather grotesquely \u2013 the fret noise that comes though so loud and so relentless, you wonder if it isn\u2019t a deliberate artistic device Awad is employing here. The simple ostinato arpeggio oppresses, the singing sounds forced, and the vile fret noise doesn\u2019t give quarter, keeping you guessing if Awad is being careless, rude, or stand-offishly eccentric. <\/p>\n

But he is certainly being neither of those things on the record\u2019s opener \u201cThe Poetry of Time\u201d. In fact, the overkill seriousness with which he tries to assemble this behemoth of a track makes you realize he hasn\u2019t chosen the moniker \u201cAmadeus\u201d for nothing — his claims are that grand. But the pompous arrangement, pathos-laden strings, allusions to Middle Eastern heritage and the long-faced tone can\u2019t hide the astonishing poverty of his melodic ideas: the opening theme is primitively childish, the Middle Eastern motif ropes in that generic pop-meets-tradition pattern you hear in street cafs anywhere from Athens to Istanbul to Mumbai, and gluing them all together doesn\u2019t make any of it sound exotic or avant-garde. The only kudos he gets here is for tasteful, elegant production. Take that away and compositional scarcity glares at you in all its nakedness. <\/p>\n

It seems that Awad sounds at his best when he journeys within without trying to assert himself. It\u2019s not for nothing that a great music critic had once said that \u201cthe more grandiose the demands, the further from grasp is artist\u2019s true self-realization.\u201d<\/p>\n

Genre: Prog Rock<\/p>\n

Track Listing:
\n1. The Poetry of Time
\n2. Noir
\n3. A Song for a Loner<\/p>\n

Hardrock Haven rating: 6.6\/10<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Alissa Ordabai – Senior Columnist — Self-iteration has always been the biggest sin of rock songwriting. Some bands allow the same tune recur once in a while \u2013 rehashed and released under a different […]<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":35329,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8704],"tags":[8424,8289,3501,8425],"class_list":{"0":"post-35328","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arcrvws2013","8":"tag-amadeus-awad","9":"tag-ep-review","10":"tag-prog-rock","11":"tag-schizanimus"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35328","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35328"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35328\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35329"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35328"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35328"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35328"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}