Volatile's name is as aggressive as its music

Four to the fore: Volatile's sound and style is a badly needed commodity in the indie music scene. Photo: Raul Dhillon

It’s not easy peddling a brand of rock n’ roll that some factions may consider archaic. But someone forgot to tell Volatile that. The quartet from Penang could care less about what’s in vogue at the moment, choosing to blaze a trail of its own.

Four years of hard graft and plying the live scene up north has given birth to Volatile’s debut album, Taking Flight, a seven-song offering that leans heavily on the classic rock sounds of the 1970s. It’s no surprise that the band offers Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple and Pink Floyd as primary influences, though smatterings of Foo Fighters and the grunge-fuelled sounds of the 1990s also crop up in the band’s sonic palette.