The 12-track follow-up to 2023’s RUCKUS! sees the quartet reunite with producer Will Yip, bringing the familiar vulnerability of Movements together with the punchier experimentation of their last record.
‘Pulse’ opens sharply, with vocalist Patrick Miranda questioning whether any of it is worth it before breaking into a raw, controlled shout. It sets the tone for an album that rarely dresses up what it wants to say. ‘Everything Is Fine’ gives us “I’m so fucking anxious I could die,’ while the first single, ‘Dissolve Me’, turns the same directness into an immediate earworm. There is still the clever wordplay expected from Movements, but Happier Now often sounds like someone is writing down exactly what they are feeling before they have the chance to make it prettier.
“Tender in places and furious in others, Happier Now finds Movements confronting the uncomfortable head on and sounding all the better for it.”
The album has plenty to offer beyond its lyricism. ‘Flowerbed’ pushes the guitars forward, letting them swell and distort through some particularly satisfying production from Yip, while ‘Live By The Sword’ carries the punch of RUCKUS! into something considerably more spiteful. After so much anxiety and self-interrogation, Movements demand accountability for one’s actions. Live By The Sword is both poetic and political.
Even the short ‘Spellbound’ earns its place, appearing almost as an extension of ‘Back In My Ways’. Miranda’s voice hangs somewhere in the distance through a wash of echoes before the track slips neatly into one of the record’s finest moments, ‘Ill At Ease’.
This already sounds made for a Movements crowd. You can see the crowdsurfers coming over the barrier, angry fingers pointed towards the stage and somebody crying in the pit while screaming every word. Miranda’s lyricism is heartbreaking in its familiarity, with thoughts that almost feel audacious to have said aloud, let alone put on a record. It captures that particular feeling of hearing somebody articulate something painfully specific and immediately thinking, ‘You too?’
‘Everyone I’ve Ever Been’ hits differently. Delicate and almost forgiving, it feels like being given five seconds to say everything you could never quite get out when you actually had the chance. There is an acceptance of something that has already happened without pretending it no longer hurts. It does not need a huge crescendo or an explosive release. The words are already heavy enough.
That delicacy lingers through the closing stretch. ‘Fragile Hands’ and ‘Separate’ are loud when they need to be, but there is a tenderness here that feels refreshing in post-hardcore. ‘Separate’ in particular holds onto a little vengeance beneath its softer moments, like someone who has healed from the pain but still has to choose to let it go every day. Its quieter ending is a beautiful way to close the record.
Four albums in, Movements still have an unnerving ability to write down thoughts most people would rather keep to themselves. Happier Now sounds familiar without simply looking backwards, carrying the emotional weight fans expect from the band alongside the confidence and bite they found on RUCKUS!.
Not necessarily happy. Just Happier Now.