Avers - Omega/Whatever (2016)

With four songwriters, four singers, and 11 tracks of guitar-saturated rock & roll, Avers' second album, Omega/Whatever, is proof that there's strength in numbers. The record shines new light on a band that made its first splash with 2014's Empty Light. Avers supported that debut release by leaving their hometown of Richmond, VA, and crisscrossing the country on tour, opening for bands like Foo Fighters and J. Roddy Walston along the way. They made a national splash during the 2015 SXSW Festival, too, with everyone from Esquire Magazine to The Daily Beast listing them as one of the week's breakout bands. Two years after Empty Light's release, Omega/Whatever finds them returning to their unofficial headquarters 151; Montrose Recording, a modern studio located on a historic Richmond plantation and operated by band-mate Adrian Olsen 151; and creating another self-produced album of rumbling rock, shot through with pop hooks, layers of percussion, and coed melodies from four different vocalists. It's a mix of old and new, much like the studio that birthed it. It's an album about balance, too, centered around the struggles of living in the modern world.