Los Angeles, California’s Volumes have just slithered back onto our radar with a new single, and it’s a slippery one. The progressive metalcore band’s first song in more than two years is called “Sidewinder.”
The act’s new standalone single is described in a press release as being “sonically violent,” and we’ll give them that, for sure, since the song is a juggernaut of djent-quaked rhythmic severity, replete with hard-howled, bitter-hearted lyrics about fakes, snakes and suffering.
“‘Sidewinder’ is an unapologetic hate letter to a world gone mad, especially the corruption within the music industry,” frontman Michael Barr explained in an interview with Knotfest, adding that the tune “offers an unfiltered perspective on a society in chaos, with no optimism or positivity.” He also said that it captures “the feeling of everything unraveling as we know it.”
The bleakness of Barr’s messaging is complemented by a starkly-lit but venomously spirited visualizer of nuclear cloud bursts, pigeons feeding on their own, burning fields and, yes, even a menacing sidewinder. The visuals were prepared by multi-media artist John Howe.
You can lap it all up above.
“Sidewinder” marks the band’s first single since their cover of Pantera’s “Rise” back in 2022. Their last album was 2021’s Happier?