A threesome from Fort Wayne, Indiana, Metavari has been a band since 2006 and has quickly risen up the ladder of post-rock stardom, already having played alongside such bands as Yndi Halda and Beware of Safety. This August the band is releasing their first full-length album, Be One of Us and Hear No Noise, a showcase of the band's hallmark sound -- a pleasant mixture of indie rock and electronic components. The guitar and drum work is layered with samples, computer-generated accents, glockenspiel, and bells, creating a soundscape that shifts from icy to warm quite smoothly and provides the listener with a crisp yet organic sound.

“Kings Die Like Other Men” is without a doubt the strongest track on the album and acts as an introduction to the journey that Metavari sets out to create for the listener. What made this song stand out, and the band stand out from other post-rock bands out there, is the way that the samples featuring men talking act as lyrics and the voice of the band, instead of merely another instrumental addition to the track. The samples provide a warm welcome to their potential fan and explain what the band set out to do with Be One of Us. We learn through the samples that the album is the story of a city, and the songs following “King” have been created to provide us with this story by evoking images through their music.

Throughout the album, images of the ocean and sea life are conjured through songs such as “Shimmer Marina”, “Pacific Lights”, “The Priest, The Shore, and the Wait”, and “Cerulean”. Silvery bells create the shimmer of either the sun or the moon on the ocean's surface, and an acoustic guitar in the background provides images of a sunset on the shore. The album is romantic, light, airy, and smooth, like opaque aquamarine sea glass.

The main downside of Metavari's new release is the way the album wanes in inspiration and intensity as the album progresses. When the first track begins, the forceful yet inviting voices that are sampled give the listener an automatic rush of energy and excitement to hear what is to come. However, after the second track ends, the following tracks don't emerge; rather, they drift quietly into consciousness, almost as if they're whispering that they are there. What we receive, instead of a knock-out album, is one with an exuberant start and a so-so middle and end.

-Jessica Reuter