Cloud Nothings
Here And Nowhere Else
Carpark Records/Mom + Pop – March 18th 2014
By Joshua Khan (@blaremag)
Find it at: iTunes | Insound | Official Store
9.0
Sincere, complex, and urgent: Cloud Nothings’ latest album is a windowsill display of how the Wipers appealed to Portland kids. There was the basement-bred, lo-fi fuzz of their S/T and 2012’s fittingly named Attack On Memory, but Here And Nowhere Else is the ugly side of growing up that no one ever sees. Moving on or sitting across from reality, well… blows, and the Cleveland rock dudes have shared their cathartic go-to which happens to be a pedal-pushing departure from everything. Efforts like “Giving Into Seeing” and “Just See Fear” mimic the band’s unconfined moments but when the instrumental segues start to panic, the grazing quickly amplifies to snap bones in half.
The intensity balances out Dylan Baldi’s ability to flesh out pop chords – though 22, he’s no novice (“Hey Cool Kid” will always challenge blog rock) and it’s noticeable in “Quieter Today” and “Psychic Trauma”, which pace with rough distortion before letting a hook say hello and crack your skull open. Baldi’s words were meant to fly at that velocity but it’s the way it ricochets off of everything else, slamming into grisly interplay, bass punches, and punishing fills that nurture high points and wipe away the need to like anyone. To be clear, Cloud Nothings’ chemistry should be taken seriously – and as serious as Jayson Gerycz’s let’s-fuck-shit-up drum work – because this is a therapeutic record that will torment your existence. If that’s not the case, then the words “pattern” and “walks” will.
Listen: “Quieter Today”, “Psychic Trauma”, “No Thoughts” || Watch: “I’m Not Part Of Me”