I didn’t enjoy Goodbye Volcano High, but I did love its soundtrack. Like many people born in the late 90s, I grew up on a steady diet of indie rock, with Metric, Arctic Monkeys, Brand New, The Killers, and The Strokes ranking among my favourite artists. As I got older, my music taste expanded, but I’ve always had an affinity for crunchy guitars, nasty riffs, haunting harmonies, and killer drum breakdowns. Goodbye Volcano High’s excellent soundtrack hits all those notes.
Dabu, best known for their composing work on Boyfriend Dungeon and Dwarf Fortress, worked with musician Common Holly to create a collection of varied tracks ranging from melancholy piano piece Won’t Forget to the headbop-worthy earworm Don’t Call. They’re hard to define as a single genre – indie rock seems the most all-encompassing, but also they don’t all quite fit under that umbrella.
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I was immediately reminded of Phoebe Bridgers and boygenius as I listened, and editor-in-chief Stacey Henley says she thought of indie pop trio MUNA. What these tracks do all have in common is that they’re bangers, with extraordinarily catchy hooks. Many of them have great, intricate guitar melodies, and layers of gorgeous vocal harmonies.
I’m not a music critic, obviously. I write about video games. But what drew me to Goodbye Volcano High, apart from its interesting thematic premise, was the soundtrack. Before the game’s release, its website hosted a number of the songs. Listening to the short playlist had me completely sold on the music, which hasn’t happened since I heard Mass Effect’s outro song and immediately added it to my gym playlist so I could do deadlifts while feeling like a spacefaring badass.
In a lot of games, the music is an afterthought, a way to fill up auditory space so you don’t feel like you’re playing a game in the void of a black hole. In Goodbye Volcano High, music is everything. A significant portion of its gameplay is rhythm-based, and the story revolves around Fang the pterodactyl trying to get their band to win the Battle of the Bands so they can perform at a show called Caldera Fest. Fang’s dream is to do music, and the songs in the game are largely performed by Fang or their band, Worm Drama. If the music was bad, I promise I would not have given a damn if Fang failed or not.
Thankfully, and as I said in my review, the soundtrack is the best thing about the game, which made me want Fang to get the recognition they deserved. I’ve listened to it all day while writing, and I will probably keep listening to it after my workday is done. I’ve briefly dipped into Common Holly’s discography as well, which from what I hear has a lot of those harmonies I loved and skews slightly towards an indie folk vibe, which I’m very into. It’s a rare thing when games put so much into their soundtracks, and I’m thrilled to say it paid off in Goodbye Volcano High. Go listen to it right now, even if you didn’t play the game. Just trust me.
