Avni Vir Vineet’s “#2020”

Bouncy but mysterious as it arises from the silence ever so gently, the initial harmonizing of strings and vocals that we hear at the start of Avni Vir Vineet’s “#2020” is rousing to anyone with a taste for clandestine pop theatrics, and while this introduction to the song doesn’t last for very long, it sets the stage for everything that we’re going to hear in the next three and a half minutes without giving away all of the hidden thrills awaiting us in the first stanza alone. Mood is clearly something that means a lot to this family of musicians, who have been making headlines with this latest release as well as their debut single, “Why Do You Wanna Go Away,” both of which were cut in 2019.

Like most pop songs, “#2020” centers on a really swanky hook in the eye of a sonic storm, but it doesn’t waste our time with a lot of fluff in our quest to get to its fever pitch. The tension in this track comes almost exclusively from the scooped EQ on the instrumentation, which creates a hollow percussive echo in the middle of the music that can’t help but induce chills amidst the steady flow of verses. It’s a technique I’ve heard a lot more commonly among rock bands, specifically of the heavier variety, but in this song it works spectacularly well for Avni Vir Vineet and the style of play that they favor more than any other.

The relationship between the vocal parts and the instrumentation is a lot more vital to the rendering of this hook than it is among the average indie releases I reviewed in 2019, and I think that if the group can somehow perfect this blueprint in 2020, they could turn in a sound that is truly and uniquely their own. I like that they appear to put a lot more heart into the little details in their music than the average pop unit does, and as long as they don’t stray too far away from this current sound in a bid to appease the masses (and sell more records), they’re going to produce a lot more impactful music than many of their closest rivals in the west will.

“#2020” concludes with one last lashing of harmonious crooning, disappearing into the darkness as quickly as it first arose, but the memory of its melodic twists and turns is not soon lost on anyone who likes virtuosic pop music as much as I do. Avni Vir Vineet aren’t necessarily changing the world as we know it with this new single, but if one thing is for sure, it’s that they’re hitting all the right notes and displaying a lot of potential worth taking a second and third look at. Simply put; the very concept of scenes within music was essentially destroyed beyond recognition by the time the 2010s were finished, and in this era of globalized pop, a group like this one could do a lot with the majestic harmonies found in their most recent studio offering.

Mindy McCall