"Au Revoir, the heavy post-rock band from New Jersey, has always, in my head, existed as an elusive band. The relationship between their recorded material and live show has never quite converged, but not in the way one might expect. The first time I encountered Au Revoir live, I was changing guitar strings outside of the house we were both playing in Redding, California. It was the middle of the summer; my mind was tired; the sun was glowing. Their bass and drums dovetailed into a slow, drawn-out, repetitive groove, and I couldn’t help but close my eyes and bob my head. I forgot about the strings, about the month on the road and the month ahead before I’d be home, about the distance between my partner and me, about the poor nights of sleep, about the overnight drives. For a moment, my mind was quiet. All I wanted, all I needed was their groove. I remember opening my eyes and feeling relief, as if nothing mattered but this experience. And to be fair, right then, it’s all that did matter. Later that night, after parting ways with Au Revoir, we listened to their record, In The Key Of Night, in the van. The first thing that struck me was how empty, how thin it sounded by comparison. I was looking to experience something similar to what I had earlier, but I was left wanting more. While rarely let down by the differences between live and recorded material, accepting them as different experiences, I am more regularly frustrated with poor live sets in relation to exceptional recordings than the opposite. Au Revoir represented a unique situation: every time we’ve played together since Redding has been hypnotizing, and I feared they would never realize their capabilities on record.But then came Veles. Veles, the new four-track, thirty-eight minute album recorded at Backroom Studios in Rockaway, NJ, represents the first time Au Revoir utilized a professional studio to replicate their massive live sound. Veles, unlike Black Hills or In The Key Of Night, is a pummeling, ominous, and fitfully heavy collaboration between Au Revoir’s five members in search of something larger than themselves. Introducing harsh vocals back into their repertoire, a recurring theme of escapist dreams appears—a theme that coheres with their upcoming split with Tyler Daniel Bean. What’s immediately striking about Veles is the emotional roller coaster that develops between Au Revoir’s softest soundscapes and their heaviest riffs. And while the band suggests they were out to capture misery, instead, they seem to have captured an elusive reality. When I listen to these songs, I don’t just think about misery or dread. I also think about Redding, about that feeling where everything I wanted and needed was in front of me begging to be experienced. Au Revoir might say, dimly, as they do in “Sinking,” that they’ll “never find what they’re looking for,” but Veles represents exactly what I’ve been looking for from Au Revoir all along."