Novulent has expanded the final chapter of their coming-of-age trilogy with VOL. 3 (Deluxe), a 16-track edition of the Texas alternative artist’s latest album featuring new collaborations with ivri and ThxSoMch.
Released August 21, the deluxe edition adds three songs to the original VOL. 3 tracklist: “self destruct,” “two sides” featuring ivri, and “scorched earth” featuring ThxSoMch. The release also arrives with reimagined manga-inspired artwork and ahead of a busy fall that will take the 22-year-old artist through North America, the UK and Europe.
Across VOL. 3, Novulent continues working somewhere between shoegaze, dream pop and post-punk, using dense guitars, distortion and atmospheric production as the backdrop for a record largely concerned with relationships, memory and the less orderly realities of growing up.
“VOL. 3 (Deluxe) is the end of my coming-of-age story,” Novulent says. “I’m not sad it’s over, but I’m also not happy. All I know is whatever life does to me I’ll power through it and do my best to comfort those dealing with what I’ve gone through. I don’t do collaborations often but I might as well go out with a bang.”
Those collaborations give the deluxe edition two additional endings to the story. On “two sides,” Novulent joins Florida artist ivri for a dark duet centered on the collapse of the relationship running through the album. The pairing plays particularly well with the record’s interest in perspective, allowing the emotional conflict to exist between two voices rather than entirely inside Novulent’s own narration.
“Scorched earth,” meanwhile, brings Canadian post-punk artist ThxSoMch into considerably more destructive territory. Built around the idea of mutually assured destruction, the song pushes Novulent’s heavier instincts forward with distorted guitars that seem to buckle and melt around the vocals.
The additions follow “self destruct,” which arrived ahead of the deluxe release and now occupies track 14 before the two collaborations close the record. Rather than feeling like three bonus tracks simply attached to the end, the new material extends the album’s conclusion, giving a project already preoccupied with endings a few more opportunities to consider what an ending actually looks and sounds like.
Originally released in February, VOL. 3 completes the story Novulent began with 2023’s VOL. 1. That first installment followed the emotional fallout of back-to-back breakups and produced “scars,” which has since been certified Gold. VOL. 2, released in 2024, approached the aftermath as a conversation between Novulent and their past self. VOL. 3 splits the difference, looking back at those experiences with more distance while still allowing the messier parts of them to remain unresolved.
As Novulent puts it, the story “is never black and white, actually, it’s always grey.”
That ambiguity runs throughout the album. “New low” translates it into bittersweet dream pop, while “evil eye” works through lust and attraction with a swirling loud-quiet dynamic. “Rip” buries questions about new romance beneath fuzz and soft vocals, and the cathartic “sacrifice” centers on breaking negative associations with the past. Even the bluntly titled “boys lie and girls steal” resists assigning a clean hero and villain to the aftermath of a breakup.
The approach suits an artist whose music is increasingly defined by contrasts. Novulent can be melodic without becoming delicate, heavily distorted without sacrificing atmosphere, and emotionally direct without offering easy resolutions. Shoegaze may provide one of the most obvious reference points, but VOL. 3 continues pulling from dream pop and post-punk without settling comfortably into any single one of them.
That combination has increasingly pushed Novulent beyond the confines of an internet-driven breakout. Following the release of VOL. 3, the artist landed the cover of Spotify’s Shoegaze Now playlist, with “dysphoria” appearing on the playlist, while “sweet revenge” was selected for Alternative Press’ “AP A-sides: 10 songs you need to hear.”
The deluxe release also follows Novulent’s biggest headlining tour to date, with the artist backed by a full band for the U.S. leg of the VOL. 3 The Final Album Tour. The next stretch begins September 12 at LEVITATION in Austin before Novulent heads across North America in November supporting Clarion.
That run includes a particularly notable Bay Area date at Berkeley’s 924 Gilman on November 14. From there, Novulent heads overseas for a UK and European headlining run beginning November 30 in Munich, followed by dates in Prague, Warsaw, Berlin, Haarlem, Cologne, Paris, Manchester and North London.
For an album framed explicitly as an ending, VOL. 3 (Deluxe) leaves Novulent with considerably more road ahead. The trilogy may be finished, but its conclusion arrives at a useful point in the 22-year-old artist’s career: one body of work completed, an increasingly recognizable sound established, and whatever comes next no longer obligated to finish the story that started it all.
Novulent, VOL. 3 (Deluxe) tracklist
- “peering thought”
- “new low”
- “rip”
- “can time heal all wounds”
- “selfish”
- “precious”
- “evil eye”
- “sweet revenge”
- “sacrifice”
- “dysphoria”
- “fix you”
- “boys lie and girls steal”
- “the world ends with you”
- “self destruct”
- “two sides” feat. ivri
- “scorched earth” feat. ThxSoMch
VOL. 3 THE FINAL ALBUM TOUR
* with Clarion
^ festival
Sep 12 – Austin, TX @ LEVITATION 2026 ^
Nov 11 – Fresno, CA @ Strummer’s Bar & Grill *
Nov 12 – San Luis Obispo, CA @ SLO Brew *
Nov 14 – Berkeley, CA @ 924 Gilman *
Nov 17 – Portland, OR @ Star Theater *
Nov 18 – Seattle, WA @ Neumos *
Nov 20 – Vancouver, BC @ The Pearl *
Nov 22 – Boise, ID @ Treefort Music Hall *
Nov 23 – Salt Lake City, UT @ Metro Music Hall *
Nov 30 – München @ Backstage
Dec 01 – Hlavní Město Praha @ Bike Jesus
Dec 02 – Warszawa @ Klub Mechanik
Dec 03 – Berlin @ Urban Spree
Dec 05 – Haarlem @ Patronaat
Dec 07 – Köln @ Luxor
Dec 08 – Paris @ Les Étoiles
Dec 10 – Manchester @ The Deaf Institute
Dec 11 – North London @ Downstairs at the Dome
Featured image credit: Oliver Leone
