Cloud Nothings – Here And Nowhere Else



Admittedly, I had to listen to this maybe 15 times until enjoyment was the outcome. But thank god I did. For someone never having heard of Cloud Nothings, their sounds is a mixture of singing one might classify between emo and Hardcore and the dirtiest rock instrumentation a indie band could deliver. The voice was my gripe in the beginning, but after some getting used to, it just fits perfectly. With it, and their gear and in just a little over 31 minutes Cloud Nothings burn a hole in your heart. Pressing play will be the only cure. 

In one word: Raw. The raspy voice of the singer going between actually trying to hit notes and just howling his words of despair, heartbreak and nihilism. The guitars and drums are the steam roller sucking you in for the words to do their damage. “Psychic Trauma” feels like a surf rock anthems worst nightmare and the pick up one minute in has you thinking of smashing everything around you. “Pattern Walks” shows just how easy the band can expand their usually short songs of anger and angst into an lengthy composition bearing the same appeal and energy with added complexity. The drums in standout track and closer “I´m Not Part of Me” bring a kind of chaos with them and when the lines “I´m not telling you / all I´m going through” crash into “I´m not, I´m not you / You´re a part of me” I feel like I got the gist of this record: Scarring is still the greatest gateway of creativity. 

Best Tracks: Psychic Trauma, Pattern Walks, I´m Not Part Of Me


9/10

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Top Albums 2022 Part I 50 – 41

Image
5 0. Vacant Gardens – Under The Bloom / Obscene Re-released in 2022 after flying under my radar in both 2020 and 2021, Vacant Garden’s provided two albums of delightful shoegaze / dream pop. The last time a band sounded this ethereal as the greats such as Cocteau Twins or Slowdive, must have been Asobi Seksu. Vacant Gardens pull together the sweet mixtures of fuzz, gloom, and vocal transcendence. There is rainy melancholy in the guitar hazes, counteracted by flourishes of powerful chords, arpeggios, and gentle strumming, all coming together in the float of Jem Fanvu’s ethereal vocals. Atmospheric density does not need to be inventive as such, it just needs to be well made and full of intricacy. Seldom do albums capture the yearnings of youth I encountered when first making contact with shoegaze. While nowadays most find the best conflation of dream pop and shoegaze in Beach House and their synthetic rhythms and uplifting haze, Vacant Gardens deliver a proof of concept in striking gre...
Read more

Top Tracks 2016 Part I 101 – 91

Image
This introduction starts with my yearly apology for not writing more on this piece of shit of a blog. Every part of life takes its pound of flesh and I spent a lot of time on useless projects, which could have been used to write a great many reviews for great albums and tracks that didn´t even get the attention or recognition on other outlets. Maybe someday, I´ll get around and do this full time. But I´ve beend writing a lot, will finish a degree soon and might get down to bringing out more content in 2017. For all things, check out my articles over here and my visit on a German student radio, talking about some of my favorite tracks and my own biography through music. Enjoy this list, I sure do.    101. Nagamatzu – Melancholy Oxide ( Above This Noise ) Nagamatzu was a duo shortly active in the  1980´s and this years Above This Noise compiled some of their scattered material on a great compilation. "Melancholy Oxide", much like the other songs, captures ...
Read more

Roy Wood$ – Exis

Image
Roy Wood$ – Exis As hype of The Weeknd´s newest effort is on its high point, I figured it would be nice to shed some light on the newest protégé of Drake, Roy Woods (stylized as Wood$). With good reason, because in Woods first effort Exis , you´ll find everything you might be missing on Beauty Behind The Madness , I definitely feel this way. There is this certain kind of murky blend of r´n´b that made The Weeknd translate into the experience or second-hand fiction of life as a lost twenty-something – between lust, frustration, loads of substances and a creative drive being fueled and destroyed by all those things. However, it would not bring Woods any justice to just put him into the line of Weeknd imitators. The similarities in sound are pretty much obvious. While there might not be a grand darkness and haze as on House of Balloons , Exis relies heavily on deep atmospheric beats and the ambiance the whole OVO imprint, fathered by Drake, are known for. But Woods doesn´...
Read more