In defense of: Like All Before You by The Voidz
Like All Before You, 2024
2024 has been a crazy eventful year for music. Lots of great music has been celebrated, but one thing that I absolutely never expected was the world turning on Julian Casablancas. First, The Voidz drop new album Like All Before You to generally mixed or negative reviews. Less than a month later, he features on Charli xcx’s remix of “Mean Girls” from her album BRAT, which happens to be received poorly as well. For someone who has been almost universally praised for their voice and the personality present in their songwriting to suddenly be lampooned as lazy and uninspired is kinda crazy to me. While I think everyone is entitled to their opinion, I happen to be a big fan of everything Julian has been making lately. What really perplexes me about this negative reception is that I really don’t think these new releases feel very far off from anything he’s done before. The new Voidz album feels like familiar territory and a logical progression for the band after 2014’s Tyranny and 2018’s Virtue. So why has the internet collectively decided that it sucks so bad?
One thing people single out a lot is the production. People have called it thin and lifeless or just generally shitty. While I can see where people are coming from, I retort with a question: is it really that terrible?? The Voidz production has always been very lo-fi and experimental, and while Like All Before You might be a step further in that direction, is it really that surprising they decided to go there? And is it really as unlistenable as people are saying it is? I wasn’t amazed by the production at first either, but at this point I see it as one of the strengths of the record. I think this album sounds like it came from an alien species from a different universe, and the production sounding the way it does really lends to this other-worldly feeling. While you might not get that after only one listen, I think taking multiple listens allows you to see the production in a different light.
Oh and that’s the other thing: this album requires multiple listens. It was not designed to be immediately gratifying, at least I don’t think it was. The production is weird, the chord progressions are unpredictable, the song structures are long and compositional, and the instrumentation can be unorthodox. These things typically don’t just immediately click with listeners, they take time to be understood and appreciated. The Voidz’ previous album, Virtue, was quite the opposite. While still strange and unique in comparison to lots of other bands, lots of the songs on that album are absolute ear candy. So immediately catchy and fun, and with punchier and generally stronger production qualities. This makes me think maybe lots of Voidz’ fans that don’t like Like All Before You were probably mostly Virtue fans. Well, I think a lot of the things that set this album apart from Virtue are strengths as well. I’m much happier we got this album than a Virtue 2. This album has just grown exponentially more exciting with every listen, and that likely wouldn’t be the experience if the album was made to be immediately gripping upon first listen.
Another aspect to this conundrum that I think needs to be discussed is the internet hivemind of musical opinions. No, I’m not talking about Riley and Graydon. I’m talking about the strange disingenuous world of music nerdism that exists on the internet. First off, I know that my platform and I are obviously contributions to this culture. It’s not my intention to ever put anybody down with my platform or opinions, but this is a phenomenon I’ve seen a lot for years and feel the need to discuss. There are lots of factors that contribute to a project’s reception these days, but it seems like it’s becoming less and less about the actual music everyday. Factors that seem to take more precedence include what online reviewers say, what the comment sections say, technical aspects of the music or production, or even the personalities and behavior of the musicians. It’s almost like we are judging music based on a matter-of-fact scientific equation based on online music nerd values rather than just listening to it for what it is and making our own opinion. It's less about the passion for the music and more about being the most well informed and credible music nerd you can be. So when the holy melon man decides that Like All Before You is NOT GOOD, and we can hear the qualities he mentions he doesn’t like, it’s easy to take his opinion as fact rather than going and giving it a shot of our own.
I know I sound like a curmudgeon and like I’m coping because my stance is that of the minority, but to be entirely honest it really doesn’t bother me that people don’t like Like All Before You; what bothers me is that people haven’t given it an honest chance and have made harsh judgements about it based on the opinions of others and a bare minimum effort to try and actually enjoy it. It shows a real negative trend in modern music consumption that it seems many people are relatively unaware of. Music should be subjective, not objective. It should be about the visceral reaction it gives you, the individual, no matter what that looks like or how the music can achieve that. It shouldn’t ever be about trends or public opinion.
With that said, I would really encourage anyone who likes the Voidz and didn’t care for Like All Before You to give it another spin with a different mindset. This album is a really cool new step for the Voidz. I would say it may be their most cohesive album to date. It flows really nicely from start to finish while still covering a lot of ground stylistically. Like I said earlier, the songs on this album are very compositional with lots of different parts and longer run times. This is pretty unlike The Voidz (“Human Sadness” aside) as lots of their songs are pretty concise and straight to the point. This adds to the cohesion and ambition of the album along with the alien-like qualities I mentioned earlier. Julian’s autotune has also received lots of criticism, but I think it's so cool. He literally sounds like an alien. Listen to “Prophecy of the Dragon” at the 1:45 mark to hear a good example of what I’m saying. It’s so unique and awesome. The whole thing feels so creatively potent and inspired from a deep place. And as a musician myself, I’m always in awe of artists that make music like that, music that’s potency builds over time. It’s a hard thing to do, but they did it so well on this album. Give it some more listens and tell me what you think!
