Avatar - Avatar Country

Avatar are one of those bands that I, and seemingly a lot of other listeners, have kind of a perplexation with and a difficult time getting into. I, personally, have a taste for carnival/circus-y imagery and aesthetic much like a kid’s taste for Brussels’s sprouts. I just find it really unappealing and super cliché most of the time I see it used, especially since it’s often just some kind of aesthetic bedazzling, adding little, if anything, of substance beyond the usual cheesy-creepy vibe. Naturally, with Avatar’s heavy usage of the aesthetic, I’ve had to fight off the natural aversion to their image (and I’m a pretty visual person) when listening to them. That they do come off as sort of weird and sometimes theatrical does at least help their visual style make sense, but it also finds them all too often sounding kind of ridiculous and corny. Their previous album, Feathers and Flesh, found them kind of reeling that aspect of the music in, but still with a bit of a way to go.

Avatar Country find them in another weird place, a fictional and abstractly classical colonial/renaissance era setting, and sonically the band jump all over the place, partially to their favor but also to their detriment. For starters, the use of the word “king” in every song’s title that foreshadowed some strung-together concept or narrative is ultimately a sign of nothing to come on the album, whose sixth track makes very clear with a cheeky but only kind of funny spoken word narration/translation of a monarchal address. Coming to terms with the absence of conceptual cohesiveness, the album does do at least one thing well, and that is keeping its audience on their toes.

The album kicks off with a royal anthem of worship for whatever king they keep referencing on the album and it leads into the longest song on the album, “Legend of Our King”, which moves from very Swedish melodic death metal, to less melodic death metal, to quirky prog metal. A bold move, starting with the longest song on an album full of oddball head-scratchers. But ultimately, it ends up being a rather strong overture for the album’s many twists and turns.

I know a lot of what I’m saying may sound like I’m bagging on the album, but for what hefty eccentricity it contains it’s well managed and actually pretty fun.

Johannes Eckerström’s vocals are a huge part of that eccentricity. A continually improving and talented vocalist, the timbre of his cleans are still certainly an acquired taste, but he runs the gamut of choked sandpaper-y rasps, furious growls, and even the accenting of his harmonies that instantly bring to mind those of Serj Tankian and Daron Malakian.

The instrumentalists do well to bring their own excitement to the record, with pull-off loaded guitar harmonies all over the place, straight up weird-ass riffs like the hard rock riff that “The King Wants You” is centered on that end up being pretty enjoyable, and 70′s prog-esque acoustic passages.

“King’s Harvest” is definitely the grooviest and most easily digestible moment on the record, with a primitive but effective low-tuned guitar rhythm and down-and-dirty death growls to go with it. “A Statue of the King“ is another more direct anthem of quick-paced melodic death metal, but it also darts back and forth pretty expertly between furious guitar assault and System of a Down-ish interluding pre-choruses to make for a heavy and interesting song.

“King After King” is pretty bouncy and worthwhile during its choruses, but its verses are conversely forgettable and it ends up more rambling than directional.

The album is certainly not without its weak links though. “The King Welcomes You to Avatar Country” kills all the momentum the introductory track gave it, with a simply annoying chorus and a slightly twangy rock beat (with some AC/DC channeling thrown in the verses) that doesn’t integrate quite as well as it should, though I do like the song’s acoustic bridge. The first part of the instrumental pair that rounds the album off is pretty unexciting and unnecessary as well; it just intros the album’s outro, which plays kind of like the rolling of credits (you can stick around if you want, but most people have probably left the theater).

Overall, it’s actually a pretty fun and exciting album from Avatar, even if it does come with a few parts that it could have done without. Avatar surely flex every bit of ability and character they possess. It’s not quite on Igorrr’s level of absolutely maddened weirdness, but for a prominent melodeath act, it has enough to keep it at least somewhat intriguing and genuinely unique. I hope Avatar continue to venture down the prog rabbit hole they’ve found that’s helping set them apart, because it does seem to be helping make them better.