Disaesthetic

The Rewatchables podcast has a great theory about the Oscars. Let’s evaluate and reward movies five years after their release. Why? To avoid a scenario where The Artist wins best picture over The Help or Moneyball or The King’s Speech wins over The Social Network or Inception.

When was the last time you had a meaningful conversation about The Artist or The King’s Speech? Exactly.

Let time percolate scenes, performances, lyrics, and guitar tones in your gut and mind. Remember how you felt in the moment, and how you experience the movie or album now. As much as I love movies, especially rewatchable movies, music means more to me than any form of entertainment. Mindfulness matters more than ever as my opinions and taste in music evolve and even change.

Look back a year later, maybe two, at least when thinking about how you truly feel about an album. Especially when you didn’t love an album at first blush.

Perfect example of this exercise is Volumes’ Happier? Recently got the chorus rhythm and guitar tone from “See You Again” stuck in my head. The sliding elastic breakdown midway through is do die for like rare ribeye.

Naturally I started playing through a few more tracks and eventually revisiting the entire album front to back. Towards the end of “Man On Fire” I realized Volumes had done some of their finer work stringing six solid tracks together, but I certainly did not think this initially. 

Some context is imperative to understand Happier? prior to its release. Volumes went through their most turbulent line-up change yet firing vocalist Gus Farias and bringing back Michael Barr. Shortly thereafter guitarist Diego Farias left the band and tragically died in February of 2020.

Farias’ departure and death significantly affected the fans, the band, and its future. His role in the band as guitarist and producer built Volumes’ musical foundation with low-tuned djent guitar driving song direction. Farias and his heavy tones and playing engineered how listeners perceive Volumes.

With Farias gone fans like myself assumed Volumes were incapable of recreating the same propulsive djent riffs found on “Feels Good” and “Vahle”. I found myself more and more dismissive of Happier? with each single released. With “Bend” in particular I wrote to my friends on our Discord about my dissatisfaction.

“They’re going more pop metal. Diego Farias’ death also meant they can’t do the guitar stuff they used to do anymore. They haven’t been able to replace that at all. Sucks.” 

Perhaps “Bend” doesn’t go as hard as “Across the Bed” but it’s accumulated nearly 2.5 million streams in less than a year versus 3.1 million accrued over six years. It resonated with a fans. So much so they recently released a Bend(ed) single with live and stripped down versions. 

Rather than perfunctory replication of Farias’ genius Volumes opted for a natural adjustment. They leveraged what they already had in two outstanding frontmen and bass player Raad Soudani emerging as the driving musical force in Volumes. Happier? utilized more clean vocal choruses and slowed guitar riffs down (naturally) without compromising the weight of their sound.

Take the album titled track above as an example. Yes there’s still lots of scrappy screaming yet they never overwhelm the senses. Instruments compliment the vocals with openness and a steady pace with no concessions in heaviness. The chorus injects all the sugary catchiness of a top 40 pop rock song, but without giving up what fans perceive a Volumes song should do.

“Get Enough” and “Lets Me Down” attack the same objective with minute variance, but mostly to the same effect. “FBX” and “Malevolent” serve fans who’ve been with Volumes since Via and maybe even The Concept of Dreaming. “Man On Fire” offers the best of both past iterations and the current form of Volumes. Aggressive from the onset and stays aggro throughout. The last breakdown hurls another box of grenades onto an already raging inferno.

If I can put my producer hat on simply cut down the record to the tracks I mentioned, eight total, in this blog and you’ll have 30 minutes of A+ poppy djent.

Considering all the turmoil and loss of Diego Farias this version of Volumes seized an opportunity to reshape their perception and produce compelling heavy music. They just need to continue doing this in the studio and hopefully on the road so I can catch them in their element.