by Haseeb Peer
On a hot may afternoon as I was surfing through some Pakistani music websites looking for a new release from any of the major heavy weights, startling news popped in at the corner of the page- “Entity Paradigm had broken again”. This time two of the Band members had left the band, leaving the fans in a sense of disarray and a despondent atmosphere. A few minutes later, I opened the official fan page of Entity Paradigm to carve out the other part of the unfinished news that I had read on the Entertainment blog. Yes, the band had broken- a message had been posted by Ahmed, Hassan and Salman on the official Ep page, thus confirming the datum that Fawad and Waqar had left the band. A couple of months later in July, a promo video was released about a song named “Ajab Tamasha” which served as a precursor to the full version released on 1st December 2012 after months of prolonged hiatus.
Ajab Tamasha with no sort of uncertainty, is a hard rock enchanting song signifying the fact that this is an original work of the band that has had a history of releasing very little music and yet having one of the biggest fan following in the country. The band through this song has conventionally established the true face of the present age and the song as its title suggests terms everything happening around as “Distinctive Mockery”. The band through this song also ascertains the fact that the present age is an age of darkness and whilst majority of the people continue to live under its shadow, some continue to live under the hammer of hunger and poverty. The song is yet another attempt by the band to inculcate some spirit into the present day Pakistani population and make them aware of the present situation and the problems that have enslaved Pakistan.
Even though the strumming of the guitars and the beating of the drums gives us the glimpses of the old EP we know, but the attempt to create ripples among the gen pop by belting out hard rock vocals has failed bitterly and voraciously. The initial revelation of the red flashing lights, the equipments, Ahmed’s eyes and the guest drummer’s thumps appear incomparable but the flavour of the song and the raw voice of the previous songs that mesmerised us and tilted the youths balance towards rock music is completely missing. Fawad’s voice has surely been missed and the deep hole that he has left in the band will surely take some more time and of course more songs to fill.
The video of the song, no doubt has the symbols of a rock video but the message conveyed through the lyrics has not been transformed into the visuals. Unlike Shor Macha which housed information about the problems of Pakistan through fast pictures, this one doesn’t have the same essence.
The rating of the video according to me has to be around 6-7 out of 10, just because of the fact that the goose bumps generated by the earlier EP videos and songs weren’t engendered in this one. On a concluding note though, this song has signaled the back of EP on the rock stage and hopefully this would be the start of regular flow of music from the band that has had a history of tremendous Alternative and Progressive Rock Music.
