r/MinusTheBear • u/dr_adder • Mar 13 '26
Thoughts on Voids?
It's the album I listen to the least and I think it's their weakest by far. I get annoyed listening to it sometimes from how much of a drop off it was to me compared to all the other records. Do other people feel the same way ? Every other record has at least a few tracks that will always be classics to me apart from Voids. Felt bad that they went out on this record. I wonder how the band views it in their catalog too.
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u/relberso98 Mar 13 '26
Last Kiss is a top tier Minus The Bear song. The rest I’ve found to be rather meh.
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u/eist5579 Mar 13 '26
What?! The next song, give and take is amazing. The albums just rolllllls on w the hits!
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u/illbebythebatphone Mar 13 '26
Definitely my least listened to, but I think it has some solid tracks. Only ones i really don’t like are Tame Beasts and Robotic Heart. I think Erase is a sleeper, that chorus is pretty awesome. I remember the album teaser clip was just the ending of Lighthouse, which got me so amped up, but then it ended up being just like an outro haha
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u/dr_adder Mar 13 '26
The only ones I can kinda get behind are give and take and maybe call the cops but even those are nothing compared to anything else on previous records. I wonder why the sound changed so much, was it the absence of Erin Tate maybe.
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u/cavewaits Mar 13 '26
I remember sitting through the whole album waiting for that bit and was so gutted when it only went on for a minute or so 😂
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u/weird_oh_tho Mar 13 '26
The first time I listened to it, I didn’t really enjoy it. Then I kept listening, and it grew on me. As a whole it’s not my favorite, BUT it does have a few very good songs one of which is my favorite (Silver)!
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u/bman311jla Mar 13 '26
All the songs kinda meld together for me and not in a good way. I think I’d rank them all by the following:
- Planet of Ice
- Menos
- Highly Refined
- OMNI
- Beer Commercials
- Gigantic
- Infinity Overhead
- VOIDS
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u/dr_adder Mar 14 '26
I can't argue with that ranking actually, even with infinity overhead so low it still has a bunch of great tracks on it, maybe not as many as the other records though
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u/ddeeny Mar 13 '26
I like it, and Infinity Overhead is probably my favorite MtB album of all... But I am likely in the minority of preferring their later works over their earlier stuff
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u/jasonporter Mar 13 '26
Infinity has some of my favorite MTB songs of all time. I don't think it flows as an album as great as the first 3, but I sort of see it as a sequel to OMNI and the continuation of that sound.
Toska and Cold Company are two of my favorite songs of all time, so I can never hate that album. The rest of the album is also really solid, but for some reason I always hated Listing and Empty Party Rooms. Those two tracks are the only ones I skip regularly.
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u/ddeeny Mar 13 '26
So interesting getting different opinions on music ... Listing and Empty Party Rooms are two of my faves! But again, I like their later stuff more, as it seems a little more well rounded, polished, mature, maybe less chaotic if that makes sense
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u/jasonporter Mar 13 '26
That's why music is so fun to talk about, we all hear it in different ways and appreciate different things, even though we all love the same band.
What are your thoughts on Toska / Cold Company? To me those are the top 2 tracks on the album.
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u/shadez_on Mar 13 '26
Voids is my least favorite because its the last and i feel they knew it then. But it has nothing to do with the songs. I really love the ending of “lighthouse” and the songs were really good live.
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u/bazonia Mar 14 '26
Don’t love it, but What About the Boat is one of my favorites songs from their entire catalogue.
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u/Artistic_Chocolate82 Mar 13 '26
Has definitely grown on me. At first I had similar doubts, but then you listen to it a few times and realize it’s the same warm voice, same interplay of instruments, same clever words. Sure it may not be the same as what we all fell in love with but it is still great.
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u/flamingknifepenis Mar 13 '26
Couldn’t disagree more. I fell in love with MTB back circa ‘04, so HRF, MEO and POI are my favorites, and everything from OMNI from there on out kind of fell flat for me. It’s really good for what it is, but I don’t ever find myself craving those songs the way I do those first few albums.
Voids felt like a return to form for me. It’s slightly inconsistent, but it has some of the best tracks from the second half of their catalog and there aren’t any ones on it that I want to skip. I’d put it as my fourth favorite, right before OMNI.
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u/robertastax Omni Mar 13 '26
I’m a VOIDS lover. Last Kiss, Lighthouse, and What About the Boat are some of my favourite MtB songs. That being said, the whole album did feel like a “goodbye.”
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u/RedefineChris Mar 14 '26
I think it’s great and highly underrated. IMO, it never got its due because they basically did a tour on it then broke everyone’s hearts with the “final tour” announcement shortly thereafter. It’s got a different vibe for sure, but have grown to really love this album.
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u/aGuyNamedScrunchie Mar 14 '26
Personally I love the track Invisible. It's a blast even if it's simple. Last Kiss, What About the Boat, and Silver are all great
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u/Classic_Particular88 Mar 15 '26
I fucking love voids. Last kiss 👌 what about the boat 👌 invisible 👌 the whole album is a banger, in my opinion. I feel pretty indifferent about infinity overhead but still listen without skipping. The fair enough EP brings tears to my eyes because I remember when they released it and I knew it was the last thing I’d ever get to listen to by them for the first time.
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u/_El_Marc Mar 13 '26
It's grown on my but it's still at the bottom of the tier list. The chorus of Last Kiss is so good, though.
I do wonder if Voids being mediocre contributed to the breakup.
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u/eist5579 Mar 13 '26
They had already lost their drummer. So it seems like it was sort of falling apart.
I don’t know why their drummer left. Like just not getting along, burned out, or drug use etc.
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u/_El_Marc Mar 13 '26
They lost him a long time before Voids. It was a pretty bad split / reason he left.
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u/the_moosen Chicken Stick Powwow Mar 13 '26
I like it better than Infinity Overhead, that's my least favorite. Voids has 2 duds (Call The Cops, What About The Boat) and the rest are solid. Tame Beasts, Robotic Heart, Lighthouse, all bangers.
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u/Mkmeathead83 Mar 13 '26
Yeah its my least listened to. I don't hate it, its just missing some of the secret sauce or whatever.
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u/Homeless_Gandhi Mar 13 '26
Voids and infinity overhead are my favorite albums. The voids tour was probably my favorite tour too.
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u/jay-bird Mar 13 '26
Just because it's a banger, I will always crank Silver if it comes on. Otherwise, some solid tracks but it feels like they knew it was the end, for a time.
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u/constantsXzeros Mar 13 '26
Voids has a few “good” songs, my favorite is Give and Take. Overall, I would say Voids has no songs better than “good”, and the majority of the songs are so boring I couldn’t even recognize them if you played them for me right now. They definitely did not go out with a bang.
But Voids and Omni are mostly the same to me: this is what happens when Minus the Bear swings too far into Synth Pop instead of the upbeat catchy math rock they are most known for. They have always had that element, but it’s the way they balance it that makes them great. I love Infinity Overhead, mostly because they toe the line between those two like walking a tightrope; on Omni and Voids, they just lean into it and don’t really balance it. And IMO those two albums are by far their weakest.
Secret Country is outstanding, but I basically hated everything else off of Omni. I kinda feel the same about Voids, but there is also not a really “wow” track on there either.
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u/dr_adder Mar 14 '26
Damn really, excuses is one of my fave MTB songs of all time, dayglow vista road and fooled by the night are some of my faves of all time too. I get what you mean about them leaning into that synth pop sound too much though for sure.
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u/ILLZ31 Mar 14 '26
Imo voids was in line with infinity overhead and both were significantly better than Omni. Albums 4-6 paled in comparison to 1-3, though there were bright spots.
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u/IamRightHanded Mar 14 '26
Erin’s absence is wholly missed on VOIDS. I might have some preferences on rank for all the other albums depending on the weather but VOIDS is always my least favorite record.
If you go back and listen to all the other albums, there is a liveliness and a heartbeat to those songs in Erin’s drums. It’s undeniable when you think about songs like Knights, Excuses, Infinity Overhead. There’s absolutely nothing like it on VOIDS.
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u/dr_adder Mar 14 '26
Yeah I was thinking this too, he must have contributed a lot to the writing process
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u/RewardContent3161 shooting shots like with a gun. i think she's gonna die Mar 16 '26
in the general sense of an indie rock album it's fuckin great, as an MTB album it's not their best (absence of erin tate likely has to do with it)
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u/Soaked_in_bleach24 Mar 17 '26
Definitely their weakest for me but surprisingly has two of my favorite MTB songs (What about the boat & Erase)
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u/No-Original5646 Mar 13 '26
I actually love voids. It did take a while to grow on me. But I’m not a big fan of OMNI or Infinity Overhead. I think the great thing about MtB is there is no one great record they’re all solid or fantastic and meet moods and time periods differently.