Written By Sam Novack
Photo by Atiba Jefferson, @atibaphoto on Instagram
One of my favorite bands, the cryptic, politically charged prison-jazz-ers back after a 6-year hiatus doing… piano ballads?
Originally forming (unofficially) back in 2009 to aid lead singer, Julian Casablancas, on his solo tour for “Phrazes For The Young”. The Voidz later returned in 2014 under the name Julian Casablancas + The Voidz to release one of my all-time favorite records, Tyranny — a raw, poetic, psychedelic noise rock classic. Many of the Voidz Crown Jewels lie here, such as “Human Sadness”, “Johan Bronx”, “Dare I Care”, etc. Four years later the Voidz (now under their present-day name) would release Virtue. A less noisy approach that incorporated modern elements of neo-psychedelia and synth rock with a heavily autotuned Julian, coining themselves as “prison-jazz”
Since then, it seems like more has happened on their Instagram than the band itself. Following the release of Virtue, a string of singles would be released yearly until 2021. Fast-forward to 2023, their demo with Daft Punk, “Infinity Repeating” would be released. This would mark the start of a new era for the band and slowly but surely, singles would start trickling out again, but no word of an album. On July 8th the band would finally announce their new record “Like All Before You” along with a controversial AI-generated album cover.
Photo made by @dolorsilentium on Instagram
Which now brings us to the present day. The record is here, and it comes up a little short. Which as a long-time fan, sucks to say. I wanted so badly for the record to be the boundary-pushing culmination of the sound they’d curated for nearly 2 decades. I remember in high school being entirely obsessed with The Voidz, daydreaming of how their new record might sound. But with my attachment to their music diminished, as did the band’s quality. Original singles aside, the record is very mild, and sonically, it’s very “safe” for what most hardcore fans expect with The Voidz.
The record opens with “Overture”, a bland synth intro to build atmosphere, which strangely enough released as a single. Secondly comes Square Wave, a track that has nods to The Strokes “The Adults Are Talking” or even a toned-down version of the previous record’s opener, “Leave It In My Dreams.” The equivalent of your standard indie rock song formula.
Following introductions comes one of the best Voidz songs post Virtue, “Prophecy of the Dragon”. To me and fans alike, this is one of the best examples of the band’s sound: heavy guitars, brain-melting solos, and of course, cryptic, indecipherable messages dipped in autotune. This song, along with other singles like “Flexorcist” and “All the Same” (which contains an incredible bridge in the 2nd half of the song) really had me pumped for this record. Now that it’s here, I can’t help but feel that many of the songs seem more like filler, just connecting the dots in the track list rather than contributing meaningfully to the album as a whole. It hardly feels like the same band is responsible for the outliers.
One thing I would like to point out in the new material is the 5th track, “Spectral Analysis”. The track offers a lush, watery piano with more auto-tuned vocals. Something very reminiscent of a track off Radiohead’s “A Moon Shaped Pool”. While I enjoy the track, it still doesn’t do much for me, or the record.
Lastly, the album’s closer, “When Will the Time of These Bastards End” attempts to recapture the darker moods of Tyranny with the use of heavy guitars and more politically charged lyrics. The vocals and groove here are borderline silly. Here a voice changer is utilized to drop their voice, only to ramble on and beg the question “Who’s laughing now?” Only to “explode” with a pretty unremarkable riff into the epitome of dad rock with an edge. This song is a walking cliche, like a parody Voidz song. The band seems so absorbed in their politics and sound that they dropped any ounce of coolness they previously possessed. (Also, this sounds entirely like a pirate song.)
On paper, the record has everything you want a Voidz record to do. But something about the use or maybe overuse of stock drum machines, dry uneager synth progressions paired with lackluster production and guitars makes this record feel very generic when compared to its predecessors. Their past records seemed to share a cultivated vision or intent. In this case, the effort spent on the music seems to mirror the effort in the use of an AI-generated cover.
Maybe I’m slamming it too hard since they did refer to the record in the original album announcement as “our little compilation album.” But that alone still doesn’t create an excuse for the record to be filled with year-old singles that are bridged together by half-baked songs with uninterested vocals. The vision just simply isn’t there, at least not a cohesive one.
At the end of a couple more listens I still felt like the record was lacking something. Tyranny had raw vocal performances and incredible soundscapes, then Virtue took that idea and leaned more into an extremely colorful and futuristic sound, and this record felt like a nuanced, stripped-back version of the band. Voidz releases usually contain some sort of unparalleled uniqueness in their performance, something that leaves you wanting to experience that moment or sound over and over. There was nothing that caught my ear this time around (excluding previous singles from a year ago). After 6 years of waiting, this was a mighty underwhelming return for The Voidz – which really bums me to say. Maybe I haven’t sat with the record long enough, but after 5 listens, I don’t see myself wanting to come back to it that often. I didn’t want to have to write a negative review, but unfortunately, it’s hard to see this as a worthy follow-up to their previous work.
Favorites: you could have guessed it, the singles from a year ago
Least Favorites: the new stuff
Rated 4 out of 10