Stygian Wavz

The Artist

Envy Of None is a Canadian art-rock supergroup formed during the pandemic years, built around guitarist Alex Lifeson of Rush, vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Maiah Wynne, producer Andy Curran, and keyboardist Alfio Annibalini. The band emerged as something entirely apart from Lifeson's legendary prog-rock legacy — atmospheric, synth-drenched, and decidedly modern in its sonic palette. Wynne's haunting, elastic voice is the project's emotional center, lending a vulnerability that contrasts sharply with the dense electronic textures surrounding her. The group's self-titled 2022 debut announced a confident new identity, and Stygian Wavz (2024) finds them deepening that identity with greater ambition and cohesion.

The Album

Stygian Wavz was recorded and produced by Andy Curran and Alfio Annibalini, with Lifeson contributing his signature guitar work across a soundscape that leans heavily into dark electronic production — think brooding synth beds, gated textures, and industrial undercurrents. Released in 2024, the album title itself gestures toward something subterranean and immersive, and the music delivers on that promise across its tightly constructed runtime. Production choices favor atmosphere over bombast, with Lifeson's guitar often acting as texture rather than lead instrument — a deliberate subversion of expectation. Thematically, the album explores isolation, digital disconnection, desire, and the uneasy overlap between the physical and the virtual.

Listen For

Synth-driven atmosphere. The production throughout Stygian Wavz prioritizes dense, layered synthesizers that create an almost underwater sense of pressure and drift. Notice how the low-end electronic textures rarely lift — they anchor every track in a kind of perpetual unease.

Alex Lifeson's guitar as color. Lifeson resists soloing or grandstanding, instead weaving guitar tones into the fabric of the mix — bent harmonics, treated chords, ambient washes. Listen for how his playing in "Look Inside" functions more like a mood than a melody.

Dynamic restraint and release. The album rarely reaches for explosive crescendos, building tension through slow accumulation rather than dramatic peaks. When moments do open up — as in "Enemy" — the release feels earned precisely because of that restraint.

Maiah Wynne's vocal control. Wynne navigates extraordinary range within remarkably small emotional spaces, using breath and grain as expressive tools rather than relying on power. Her delivery in "Paranoia" sits right on the edge of composed and unraveling — a tightrope worth paying close attention to.

Themes of alienation and digital longing. Across tracks like "Shadow" and "Karma," the lyrics probe the disorientation of modern connectivity — feeling watched, feeling distant, feeling like a ghost inside your own life. The language is spare and imagistic rather than confessional, which makes it land harder.