Amador, Adanowsky EMI, France/Chile/Mexico
Rating: 78
by Carlos Reyes
Adanowsky’s voluptuous messy hair and beard are taking over his El Idolo-era looks, switching his overall aura to a much contained, vigilant, and even more sober character, Amador. Adanowsky is a showman in and out of stage. His new album isn’t the best platform to embrace his eye candy qualities; it’s rather, a manifesto of a man that sits down to write provisional songs, using a Mariachi jacket as a coat, and exploiting melancholy as his driving force. Amador isn’t motivational or awe-inspiring, yet it still holds seductive reason beneath all its depressive coating. As part of a trilogy, the concept of Amador works, not only is it it full of well-written songs, it’s a personal riot, and an opportunity to recontextualize his career.
During the first week of the album’s single release “Me Siento Solo”, a couple of people justly compared the song to Reyli’s “Desde Que Llegaste,” that guilty-pleasurable “arrabababasei” pop hit. Not to say Adanowsky is down there with Reyli’s sailor-scheming composition, but when trying to understood music moods, making such comparisons should be applauded. “Me Siento Solo” hurts, it’s an inconsolable song that cries its agonizing sorrow with lines such as “me quiero ir de aqui, lejos de mi.” This great opening single sets up most of the album’s temper. He has never been the most genre-diverse artist out there, but when creating new character, you don’t have to reject a sound, you should evolve it. While Amador is a fairly superior album than El Idolo, the songs alone struggle to find distinctiveness. That’s except for the non-Spanish language tracks: the very Frenchy “J’aime Tes Genoux” and the collaboration with Devendra Banhart in “You are the One.”
If you’re in the right mood, Amador’s reflexive moments will work their magic just the way Adanowsky intended. The first true revelation in the album comes with “Amor Sin Fin”, the kind of song where Adanowsky’s multi-national entity comes to life; it’s got the depth of the new Chilean song, while it blurs the lines between Jacques Brel and José José. Also melancholic, is that Cucurrucucu Paloma-inspired track “Dime Cuando.” I intended not to mention his father Alejandro Jodorowsky on this review, but it’s quite impossible when he appears in most of the album’s lyric credits as a co-author. But most of all, because Adanowsky includes a cover of “Dejame Llorar”, a song many of us movie lovers recognize as it’s one of the key pieces in Jorodowsky’s Santa Sangre, a 1989 movie in which Adan Jorodowsky had his debut as a young actor.