Chris Ballew’s Volume Two turns absurdity into an art form, so forget what you know and let these songs spin around your head like tiny musical moons in orbit.
Not many songwriters have had as odd a career arc as Chris Ballew. As the ebullient leader of the Presidents of the United States of America, he helped soundtrack the '90s with offbeat hits “Peaches” and “Lump” that buzzed like caffeine-fueled cartoon lightning bolts through alt rock radio. Now, with Volume Two, Ballew dives headfirst back into the glittery soup of hook-heavy psychedelia, bottling songs from his recent solo releases Laying Low, Power Trip, Void Crusher, and Truth And Dare into one kaleidoscopic slab of wax.
Don’t think of this as a “best of” or “greatest hits” package, that completely undersells the strange little universe Ballew has created for himself. Sure, you can call it a retrospective, but Volume Two feels more like rifling through the cosmic jukebox inside Ballew’s head. The album crackles with bright power-pop melodies, warped guitar parts, and lyrics that flitter between surreal poetry and garage-rock sugar rushes. Every chorus is upon you before you know it, like a rock n’ roll pinball ricocheting off the walls of your skull.
Ballew describes the sound as “Pop Cosmic,” and honestly, that label fits as well as anything. The songs let the melodies fly with fearless abandon, but there’s also something hypnotic beneath the surface. One minute the album feels like you’re alone, sprawled across the living room floor, headphones held in place with steady hands. The next, it detonates into a full-blown dance party and you’re jumping around that living room with those same hands thrown into the air. And you do care.
Though traces of Ballew’s alt-rock DNA are still wired into the riffs, what makes Volume Two feel abnormal in these days is the sense that he remains creatively untethered, gleefully following sounds and ideas wherever they lead. That same playful spirit fueled his long-running children’s music project Caspar Babypants, but here it’s filtered through a more psychedelic lens, one splashed with an artist’s colors and wide-open emotions. And in a time where so much pop music arrives polished into digital glass, Volume Two proudly smudges fingerprints all over the speakers. It’s weird, warm, catchy, and joyfully unpretentious.