Goner, the new 10-inch EP by the Milwaukee trio Volunteer, is getting some attention because of a recent endorsement by a member of the punk-rock royalty: Jawbreaker drummer Adam Pfahler. It seems that Pfahler approves of the band’s cover version of “I Love You So Much It’s Killing Us Both,” a track from Jawbreaker’s final album, Dear You. (His exact words? “HEAVY. Dug It!”) Volunteer’s take on the emo standard essentially strips Blake Schwarzenbach’s self-loathing to its barest essentials, turning a slick pop song into a violent dirge. And, somehow, it works.
The cover song was originally intended for a split record that never came out. Volunteer had initially decided to record a version of Negative Approach’s “Nothing”—“Mostly because,” explains vocalist/guitarist Francisco Ramirez, “my vocals sound close to John Brannon’s vocals”—but the band found the hardcore classic too easy to play. Taking a cue from punk-rock legends Killdozer, Ramirez, along with drummer Mark Sheppard and bassist Martin Defatte, took a well-known song and “slowed the tempo down and made the ugliest cover. We wanted to make the Jawbreaker song sound more like how we sound.”
And the three original songs on Goner, co-released by the band’s label Triple Eye Industries and Chicago-based Forge Again Records, find the band really developing their own sound. Simply put, these songs sound more developed than earlier Volunteer material. Moving away from the “shorter, faster, louder” approach to songwriting, these tracks all clock in at more than three minutes. “The writing process took us much longer this time,” explains Ramirez, “where before we were just writing to create enough songs for a live set.”
This does not mean that the band is moving away from their sludgy post-hardcore roots. One can still hear the influence of such seminal acts as Helmet, Unsane, Deadguy, Big Black and, yes, Killdozer throughout Goner. Opening track “Nein,” with its pummeling riffs and gruff vocals, would have fit in nicely on Strap It On, while the record’s title track may be the band’s most unrelenting song yet: “Goner” is three and a half minutes of pure menace. Yet songs such as “Free-er Bird” find the band embracing their inner stoner metalhead and moving into territory mined by the likes of Kyuss, Nebula, and High on Fire. Perhaps the title is a clue, but the track isn’t afraid to ride a more rock-infused groove. It’s an interesting development for a band that, to this moment, has almost solely been interested in bludgeoning the listener into submission.
All of this does not suggest that a Dear You is in Volunteer’s immediate future. Yet songs such as “Free-er Bird,” along with the band’s deconstruction of “I Love You So Much It’s Killing Us Both,” show that Volunteer is willing to experiment and move outside of the confining yet comfortable boundaries commonly associated with underground music. As a fan of Jawbreaker, there is something thrilling about hearing Ramirez bark out, “I don’t think I hate you enough to commit you to me.” Such a moment harkens back to an era when genre distinctions really didn’t matter: punk was punk (Jawbreaker, it should be noted, often shared the stage with hardcore punks Econochrist). Here’s hoping that Volunteer continues to ignore these boundaries.
Volunteer play an EP release show Thursday, Oct. 30 at the Cactus Club with Child Bite and LLTTTD at 9:30 p.m.
Stream Volunteer’s Goner EP below.
