Bob Katsionis
Amadeus Street Warrior

Bob is having nostalgic thoughts and put together a 16-bit album that is the soundtrack to a video came concept he has figured out himself. It is about Amadeus who armed with a golden flute goes on a quest through San Fransisco in the 2050s to hunt down his evil father who is behind an evil plot and mutated into a mad mouse – something like that. Good retro-looking cover that brings the old video games into mind, those with pretty exciting-looking covers but when you played them, they were mostly pretty ugly pixelated things that looked nowhere as exciting as the covers. The story of this pixelated adventure is structured like the one in a classic video game with music for the opening, the main theme, boss fights, some environments, ending and things like that put up in levels and bosses.

Instrumental of course and Midi, 16-bit sound, it certainly brings the classic video consoles like the NES and Sega Master System to mind, and also things like Commodore64, Amiga, the things that were played well before the modern stuff we had today. Sometimes I think that old games had more charm, in a way they do as many modern games requires way too much time, but playing these old games makes me pretty quickly realise that newer games are better. But the music looks at the old classics that set the tone and this would be a nice soundtrack to a pixelated adventure on a low resolution small but very heavy TV-screen. Remember to blow away the lint so the NES-cartridge plays as it is supposed to.

It is a good look back, a nostalgic moment and quite enjoyable. But like most of the video games it isn’t a very memorable album, there are good melodies and hooks. Good storytelling in a midi way but it doesn’t really take long before you want more bits and more channels and sounds. It is the same as playing and old favourite NES game, it is fun for a while but then you realise why the world has moved on; the controller sucks, the games are simple, and they lack a bit of depth. I would call it a fun distraction for a while but not one that you really will think of as one of the more impressive albums you have heard.

So, Bob gives us a nostalgic moment, and that’s really fine and pretty enjoyable. But he does not give us an album that stands out or makes a strong lasting impression, but for me as a guy that mainly writes about rock and metal and stuff like that it is a pretty fun change with a midi-album and as it is good it gets even better – until it doesn’t. That’s the thing, this album doesn’t have much longevity it lives as long as you are nostalgic and when you think about it, you don’t really want to be teleported back in time to the eighties – if you think you do, you are lying to yourself. It was fun to listen to Amadeus and his flute, but I am also happy to be done with it now.

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