On April 16, 2025, happier? releases their debut EP Anything, a five-track chronicle of heartbreak, self-inquiry, and emotional disarray written in the aftermath of a broken engagement. Anchored in post-hardcore and emo but colored with piano-led arrangements and abrupt sonic left turns, the EP documents vocalist Joshua Venzetti’s attempt to process personal collapse by turning it into sound.
“This whole EP was me figuring out my feelings about my broken off engagement,” Venzetti states. “It was part catharsis, part distraction.” Each track began at his piano at home before expanding outward with contributions from Kiran Solanki (guitar), Lexi James (bass), and Fraser Powell (drums).
While Venzetti self-recorded his vocals and keys, they brought in engineer Meyrick de la Fuente (Sleep Token, Vexed) for the instrumentals. Mixing was handled by Steve Evetts (The Wonder Years, Senses Fail), with mastering by Jay Maas (Title Fight, Citizen).
“The whole EP follows the day my engagement ended,” says Venzetti, who threads personal fragments through piano riffs, mental breakdowns, and unexpected emotional shifts. “Every time I went to replace a song, it just felt wrong.”
It’s not a breakup record with answers, but one that documents the disorientation of heartbreak in real time.
Get the full picture from the detailed track-by-track commentary below.
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If I Couldn’t Live Without You
This whole EP was me figuring out my feelings about my broken off engagement, it was part catharsis, part distraction.
Every single song started on my piano at home and progressed from there, and I think that If I Couldn’t Live Without You is the perfect opener for that reason, it introduces the piano, rolls into multiple styles that I used to distract myself, and chronologically follows the day that my engagement ended.
Anything
One of the things that my ex-fiance said to me when we broke up was “you better write some good music about this” which made us both take a break from crying to laugh. This song came to me that night. The bridge of just “anything, anything” over and over again comes from a bit of a mental breakdown I had while she was packing her things. I just found myself saying “anything, anything” over and over again, as mentioned in If I Couldn’t Live Without You. It was a weird feeling because as that was happening my brain felt like it split in two, half of it was really just going through it, and the other just kept thinking “this’d make a killer bridge”. I think it did!
My Lover, My Friend
This was the first song to be finished on the EP and I think it shows. It feels a lot more meat and potatoes than the rest of it. I went back through it a couple times after it was “finished” and played with some of the sections, but the song it is now and the song it was a year ago are pretty much the same. It was fun playing with the vocoder at the start, and I love the piano high line in the chorus. The bridge/outro came out of nowhere and was finished before the next song, Bitter was even started, but we ended up ordering the songs this way because I really think it helps setup what people are about to listen to.
Bitter
Look, I have no idea why this is on the EP but every time I went to replace it with another song it just felt wrong. Bitter was started the first and only time I really felt angry during the breakup, and I very quickly realised I couldn’t carry the emotion through the whole song. It devolves into self critique, which feels apt for who I am as a person. I remember Fraser (drums) told me that when he first listened to this song he didn’t really believe I’d written it, then when the organ comes in he said “ah there’s Venz”. Shout out to the sound at 2 minutes which fried a hard drive of mine because instead of printing it down I made my computer slow down from 180bpm to 1bpm constantly. Not my brightest move.
Where Your Eyes Go
The best song I’ve ever written. Easily, not even close. This song both made me not want to release this EP, and was the push that Kiran (guitar) and Lexi (bass) needed to make me release the EP. The thing I love most about this song is it technically isn’t even finished, I always meant to go back to the outro and add some more instrumentation, but Lexi basically said she’d kill me if I changed anything. It’s rough having what you feel is your best song be a song that can’t be released as a single. The outro just wouldn’t work. I know the last song on every project kind of gets left behind by listeners, but I hope that doesn’t happen here, I think it’d be a real shame to miss out on it.
