Review
Have a Nice Life
Voids

Maybe, just maybe, the internet is the reason that some ideas or feats of intellectual wizardry become tangible objects. This could be due to some radical phenomenon, or it could even (gasp) be due to the quality of the work on display. This little theory works in several ways for the duo who are Have A Nice Life. And, if you give it a few seconds, I shall illustrate what exactly I am going on about here. The internet has been a boon to the notoriety of Have A Nice Life (in a great way) both in terms of getting people to listen to the band and in creating an album for the group. Truly an internet phenomenon, the band and its garnering of said notoriety is one of the few good examples as to what makes the internet worthwhile (I am a luddite at heart).

Not so long ago, a group of the craziest and most ardent followers of Have A Nice Life put together (with the band’s permission) a batch of demos (for their debut, Deathconsciousness), odds and ends, and a few unreleased songs the band had built up over its nascent years while writing their first album. This compilation was released free to the internet as Voids, a ten-track expansion of the band’s unique sound. I remember after downloading this sucker it quickly became a “record” which was listened to obsessively for several months, particularly the four unreleased songs that occupy the last section of the collection.

The demo versions of the songs from Deathconsciousness are interesting because you can hear some of the progression of these tracks. They show just how sophisticated the final versions can be, but at the same time, these demos give listeners a different perspective of those compositions. The five unreleased songs are certainly the gems of Voids (at least for me) because, besides the obvious fact that they are new material to most people, they are some of my favorite songs the band has written at this stage, Case in point, listen to “Sisyphus” (with its mellow arrangement that gives way to the giant climax that is so damn good with the soaring vocals that just kill me) and “Destinos” (a piece full of supremely hypnotizing sounds and subtle melodies) and tell me that they are not great songs.

Well, after enough clamoring for a physical form of this collection, the people at Music Ruins Lives somehow convinced Have A Nice Life to allow them to release this sucker on cassette. When this was announced, I swear a large section of the internet suffered a brown out due to the effusive blogging and general online hoopla the news generated. Even better than just releasing this on cassette, the band included one more unreleased song, the humorously named, “I’m Dr. House," in the collection as an additional bonus (a particularly nice generous gesture on their part).

Unfortunately, if you do not own this release, you have missed out because Voids is already sold out (it was a limited run of just 100 copies, much like the other cassette release from the band, Time Of Land). But remember, the internet is still in existence (the apocalypse did not occur yet, well at least not at the time of me writing this). Go out and download this now if you have not already, and you certainly will not be disappointed in the least and will be able to bathe in the numbing goodness of “Destinos”.