The first few seconds of volcano’s third release sounds like Salvador’s Dali’s alarm clock. To say it ‘erupts’ would be easy, conventional, and that would be doing this Chicago band a huge disservice, because if ‘Piñata’ does anything, it marches to the beat of its own drum.
The self-titled opened sounds a bit like a disjointed Vampire Weekend, and there are plenty of interesting sounds at work. More so, the song tells the story of a ‘Piñata’ from the viewpoint of the Piñata and so provides a fairly bleak introduction into what is a largely upbeat album – the imagery largely fulfilling Aaron With’s goal to “tell stories with strange but universal sentiments.” These tales come from a cavernous imagination – and the instrumentation is no less fantastical, with warped sounds bending and folding around themselves until they fit the song. And fit they do, somehow.
As an example of this, ‘Fighter’ leads off with drums, and it is the percussion that drives the mood of the track more than the chord progressions – with bare exposure on the first verse, before the song explodes into a riot of sounds led by a jagging guitar that drills itself into the track. “I’m a fighter, and I wish I could turn my hands into knives” sings With on the chorus, producing another powerful image that acts as a reflection of the aural assault the band have created.
It is a sound that is very much layered. Its only style is a combination of styles, from atmospheric percussion to jagged guitars, electronics that clash with melodies and With’s aching vocal. It’s a sound beyond genre-classification – post punk, art rock, whatever; this is a band that drive a square peg into a round hole. There’s so much going on that something new can be discovered with every listen. That in itself is appealing, but is also the album’s major downfall as with so much to focus on it’s hard for anything to stand out, and that makes it difficult for much of the content to permeate.
Out now from through The Leaf Label.
Posted by Kevin Scott.
