Seether‘s “Broken” is one of those early 2000s rock songs that a certain generation basically grew up inside. A Thousand Reasons knew that going in, and the Reading, Pennsylvania band didn’t try to dodge the weight of it. Their cover dropped March 27th, featuring Volpe Vetrano – formerly of Infernal Opera, returning to the studio for the first time in nearly ten years after stepping away in 2021 following personal loss. That context matters here. This one wasn’t put together just to put out a cover.
This is clearly a labor of love to the band and the genre that shaped them most as artists, and the passion comes through in both the performance and the execution. Joe Drenning handled everything on the production side – every instrument, lead vocals, mixing, mastering – out of his home studio, and the intimacy of that setup actually works in the track’s favor. The decision to replace the original’s violin parts with hand-crafted electric guitar lines is the most interesting creative call on the record, and it pays off. Volpe’s vocals were recorded in three takes with minimal processing, and you can hear why they kept it that way. There’s an unguarded quality to her performance that a cleaner approach would have smoothed out entirely. Nate Baker’s layered harmonies sit underneath everything without crowding it, adding atmosphere rather than just filling space.
For Volpe, this is a comeback record in the most literal sense – a reemergence after years of silence, and she said as much herself. That kind of story either comes through in a recording, or it doesn’t, and here it does. ATR is heading back to live shows in May 2026 with a full lineup that includes Volpe on female vocals, so “Broken” is less of a one-off and more of a signal of where the band is headed next.
