Volume 2 does not add new songs to the body of work built by The Bouncing Souls. It takes songs already known to listeners and gives them a gentle, quiet treatment — no electric backing, no rush.
The idea is plain: take music built on a fast pace and see what remains once that fast pace is set aside.
The Aim Behind The Album
Volume 2 offers new, quiet versions of older material rather than a set of originals. Ten of its eleven tracks are past Bouncing Souls songs rebuilt in a gentler, calmer form.
The goal is a look back at a career through a quiet mood, not a bold change of direction.
Numbers Worth Knowing
- Artist: The Bouncing Souls
- Album: Volume 2 (2020)
- Type: Album
- Tracks: 11
- Total running time: 36 minutes
- Longest track: Ghosts on the Boardwalk (5:08)
- Shortest track: Say Anything (1:58)
Track By Track
Argyle opens the record at 2:42 and sets the mood right away — gentler, warmer, less urgent than the original. Gone follows at 4:21, one of the longer cuts here, and gives the band room to draw the melody out instead of rushing through it.
Late Bloomer and Simple Man pass through the middle part of the record without much fuss. Adequate, but not the songs any listener will point to first.
Hopeless Romantic, at 3:08, is where the idea behind the whole project comes together — the gentler pace suits the song’s feeling instead of fighting it.
Kids and Heroes keeps that energy going, one of the tracks singled out for praise. Favorite Everything sits between the standouts, present but easy to forget once the record moves on.
Highway Kings and World on Fire are the two tracks that best justify the whole project. World on Fire, at just 2:21, does the most with the least — a short, direct new version that one review praised for bringing out a depth described as “subtle, peaceful, and fresh.” Highway Kings carries the same weight across a slightly longer run.
Say Anything, the shortest track at 1:58, sits quietly before the closer.
Ghosts on the Boardwalk closes the record at 5:08, the longest track here, and gives itself over most fully to the mood of memory tied to the band’s home city.
Two Views From Critics
One review made the claim plainly, saying the album takes ten songs from the band’s older body of work and turns them into gentler, quieter versions. That is the whole claim, stated without excuse.
Not every listener agreed. One user review on Album of the Year raised the doubt sitting at the center of the project, saying the record is billed as a set of alternate versions of the band’s hits but plays mostly like a quiet record built around voice and guitar instead.
That difference of view runs through every reaction to Volume 2 — is this a set of new versions, or simply the same songs with the electric guitars taken away?
Final Word
Volume 2 works best as a mood piece, not a change of direction. The Bouncing Souls never claim these are new songs, and the record is stronger for saying so plainly.
Where it succeeds — Argyle, Hopeless Romantic, Kids and Heroes, World on Fire, Highway Kings — the calmer pace reveals something in the writing that a fast pace used to cover. Where it falls short, the arrangements just feel like the originals with the energy taken out, closer to an exercise than a real new version.
At 36 minutes across 11 tracks, the record stays tight and focused and ends at the right moment.
It will not win over any listener who wants the band’s old force back, and it does not try to. For longtime listeners willing to hear these songs made quiet and gentle, Volume 2 offers a real, if modest, reward.
- Argyle2:42
- Gone4:21
- Late Bloomer2:53
- Simple Man3:58
- Hopeless Romantic3:08
- Kids and Heroes3:07
- Favorite Everything3:11
- Highway Kings3:15
- World on Fire2:21
- Say Anything1:58
- Ghosts on the Boardwalk5:08
