Review Summary: From front to back, 'Into the aether' is a well-rounded alt-rock masterpiece.
In the year of 2011, vocalist Rebecca Need-Menear and guitarist Jamie Finch started writing songs under the name Anavae (pronounced A-nah-vae). Less than a year later they release their first EP entitled ‘Into the aether’, a collection of seven very strong alt-rock tracks with a pinch of electronic influence.
Clocking in at just under thirty minutes, ‘Into the aether’ is the perfect sample size for first time listeners of Anavae. The first track of the album, “Exit Stage Left Pursued by a Bear”, demonstrates how powerful Anavae can be. The songs starts out with some spacey sounding guitars from Jamie, and some lower, softer crooning from Becca. You then get sucker punched as the rest of the band enters the track, with distorted guitars and driving drums by Seb Gee of YouTube fame. The opener showcases the duo’s melodic tendencies, while proceeding tracks like “Idle Minds” and “Zero Fidelity” show how straightforward they can get, but still keeping your full attention in the process.
The strongest tracks of this EP are the final two. “Invaesion” puts the duo’s electronic influence in the forefront, with electronic build-ups followed by Michael Bay like explosions, the second of the two always makes me think ‘Knife Prty’ by Deftones. The song also features the strongest chorus of the whole album. The closer, “World in a Bottle” may be my favorite album closer ever. The atmosphere of this song is reminiscent to a rain forest, with some sleek sounding clean guitars by Jamie in the verses, followed by catchy distorted guitar leads, the latter being a reoccurring theme throughout the whole EP. Becca describes what I interpret as an ancient civilization through her best vocal performance on maybe any Anavae release.
So overall, Becca and Jamie made a great first impression with ‘Into the aether’. From front to back, ‘Into the aether’ is a well-rounded masterpiece that deserves way more attention.
