Album Notes

Avery is the story of Avery Mann, a musician and composer who writes a rock opera based on the medieval morality play Everyman. When a major record label drops him and the rock opera is shelved, Avery heads off for a rainforest trek in Belize, a tiny Caribbean nation in Central America. Just as he receives word that an independent record label is willing to release his rock opera, things take an existential turn when Guatemala invades Belize and Avery is caught behind the lines. It’s eco-tourism with a twist!

Although described as a rock opera for simplicity’s sake, Avery actually surveys a broader musical landscape. It shifts from rock to prog rock at random, with acoustic songs providing a buffer zone. And, like a play within a play, there’s even a rock opera within a rock opera. Ultimately, Avery is a triumph of the human spirit with underlying parables on globalization, free speech, and the environment—all that in about an hour and fifteen minutes.