Set to a rhythm that rolls forth from the silence with an almost angry wallop of melody right behind it, Jacob Agar’s “Avinu Malkeinu” might not start with a lot of fireworks, but it quickly finds a way to turn white-hot before hitting the sixty-second mark. Whether consumed in single or music video formats, “Avinu Malkeinu” is a dizzyingly potent vocal number for Agar, who departs from the sound of his peers’ work ever so slightly yet again in this studio cut that presents us with his most formidable and outspokenly vibrant melodies to see widespread release thus far.
The music video and the song itself don’t necessarily have the bombastic trappings of mainstream content, but beneath the indie varnish we find on the surface level, there’s a sturdy pop conceptualism that has more in common with the upper crust of the genre than it does anything in the underground today. This, of course, isn’t to say that Jacob Agar is somehow selling out – on the contrary, I would instead suggest that the mature look he’s sharing with the world in “Avinu Malkeinu” is more indicative of his ongoing growth and adeptness when it comes to transitioning from the minors to the big leagues.
I would have liked a little more focus in the mix on the vocal closer to the end of the track, but I understand the need for some symmetry with the instrumentation at this point in the song. Where some might have wanted to go big with the vocal here, I like that Agar is holding back just a bit, if for no other reason than to give us something to chase after as he disappears into the silence. He has a lot of charm, and he isn’t letting any of it go without some share of the spotlight by the time we reach the pinnacle of the song (which is hard enough to pinpoint on its own).
“Avinu Malkeinu” runs a little longer than it probably has to, but I wouldn’t go so far as to say that it’s compositionally bloated or somehow overstuffed with more melodicism than we need. Agar is showing off a lot of ambition in this latest release, and although he has a mountain of competition coming his way out of the international pop spectrum, I think that as long as he maintains the attitude he has in this release, he’s going to do just fine in the long run.
