REVIEW: Olive Vox - Trace It Back

To spend time with your friends is already a blessing; to centre your deep-rooted friendship at the core of your music is on another level. OLIVE VOX aren’t just a Texan alt-rock quartet, they’re best friends, brothers in blood and music, a sentiment that has seen them taking on the rock scene and quickly earning a growing fanbase that are hungry for their emotional honesty and self-reflection, their evident joy at performing live, and medleys that weave catchy guitar riffs with boisterous drum beats and fresh vocals.

Now they’re ready to launch their breakthrough EP Trace It Back, a collection of hard-hitting, personal tracks that don’t stay within the lines of genre and emotion, shifting from alt-rock to skate-punk to hints of post-grunge, as the band open their pasts to us and take us through the healing journey they've taken so far to a brighter future.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TV59g9fn0_g

Hear Me Out introduces the quartet with Dayton Phillips’ pumped up beats and stirring bass from Ben Reid that’s quickly joined by Caden Shea’s upbeat riffs, all belying the tragic lyrics of vocalist Parker James as he desperately tries to break out of the never-ending cycle of guilt and feeling like he can’t move on, breaking into a heart-rending scream of “hear me out” and pleas to be noticed. Baby Doll blends genres together with the grittiness of grunge, the attitude and rhythms of Britpop indie-rock, and the deafening power and intricacy of alt-rock, creating a track that doesn’t play by anyone’s rules and yet is probably the band at their most precise and serious on the record.

Climbing guitar riffs and a crispy drum beat sweep us into I Do before it reaches a pinnacle of raucous screams and forcefully played instruments with a chorus that demands to be sung along to, a moment of connection between OLIVE VOX and fans that will be sure to raise goosebumps as they howl back and forth. Things slow down and a heavier emotional weight is felt on Far From Heaven, a melancholic tinge to the guitar riff that echoes James sorrowful vocals that shift from soaring steadily to raw and coarse on “my heart weighs heavy, the truth is upsetting”, the track feeling like a lament for the band who have worked tirelessly in an unforgiving industry and potentially even their generation that was promised the world and now faces moving goalposts.

We Are Not The Same fades in gently with an acoustic guitar, its subtle minor chords already hinting that this will not be a positive ballad before Phillips smashes in with pulverising beats and Reid grips us in a thudding bass line that carries the track, while Shea moves fluidly from reverbed, climbing riffs to fuzzed and heavy riffs, James building to a cry of “don’t you feel my pain now?” and a repeated statement of “we are not the same” dropping to a final lament in a low whisper. Sufficiently saddened by the previous track, closer Black and White ramps up the pace and energy again with a racing rhythm and beat, a relentless guitar solo, and a juicy breakdown that strips back the instruments for a primal scream of “somebody bury me alive!” before the wall of noise slams back in like a welcome brick to the face. With the release of Trace It Back, OLIVE VOX draw a pretty solid picture of why they should be on your watch list.

Score: 8/10

Trace It Back will be released on 18th September 2026 via Big Machine Rock.

Words: Julia Stark

Photos: Kylie Green