Avatari has been establishing a reputation for robust harmonies for a little while now, but in his latest single, the taut “High Like This,” he utilizes them for the critical tool that they have to be in the big leagues of pop music. There’s nothing to come between his firm vocal and the audience he seeks to satisfy in this track; contrarily, this might be the most aggressive look he’s adopted in the studio to date. Though rooted in elements of rock, contemporary pop and indie rebelliousness, there’s no easy to way to categorize what Avatari is turning in with “High Like This” other than to say that it’s a groove-happy number, featuring an up and comer determined to chase after the biggest and most evocative beats he can.
I really love the dexterity Avatari exhibits with the rhythm in this song, but the spotlight is always trained on his singing, despite the instrumentation doing its best to capture some of our attention for itself. His voice is a force to be reckoned with here, and although he isn’t necessarily throwing down any cathartic harmonies that we didn’t already know he was capable of producing, this is all the more evidence that he’s becoming one of the more important artists in his scene to watch. After a string of one-off singles, he sounds ready to make an LP in this song, or at the very least, as ready as an introspective pop musician like himself could ever be.
The arrangement of this song suggests a super-meticulousness that I hadn’t noticed in Avatari’s previous studio cuts, and frankly I think that it’s tight enough to hold its shape even if the track were to be remixed specifically for club play. There’s such a sexy swing to the beat that it would almost be criminal to rob dancers of a couple different versions of “High Like This;” the bones here are flexible enough to be manipulated in a lot of different directions, and as long as Avatari’s lead vocal remains in the middle of all the action, I don’t see why this track couldn’t become one of his first – and most recognizable – breakout hits on the international level. After all, audiences are primed and ready for an artist of his caliber to take charge in 2023.
While I’m just starting to appreciate Avatari for the talents that he undeniably sports with pride in “High Like This,” I think there’s enough substance to this latest release to warrant additional analysis of his work in the future. His development has come slowly but surely over the years that have passed since dropping the first few songs that would bring him any level of professional attention in recent times. He’s still got some ground to cover between here and the mainstream dial, but at this rate, I think he’s going to be in a really lucrative position for making gains with his career as the decade begins to unfold, and with it, a new era in pop music history.
Cleopatra Patel