Cloud Nothings: Final Summer

I went to see Cloud Nothings play live recently. Unbeknownst to me — and I imagine most of the audience — they played Final Summer front to back to start off the show. All ten tracks. All 30 minutes of it. Not optimal for a band who have been putting out records since 2011 and have seven previous albums full of music that presumably people love. Thanks, guys, I had no interest in hearing anything from Let It Bleed. No, please, lets hear all of Hackney Diamonds. And maybe I didn’t read the flyer, but I kind of listened for a half hour wondering why I didn’t really know the songs the way I thought I did. Sure, they were energetic and whatnot, but they seemed a little rushed and really, really loud.

Don’t get me wrong, I like loud. I like the fact Cloud Nothings were always either in the pocket of or verging on noise rock. An indie rock trio with oodles of energy and drive. Especially the absolute bonkers drumming of Jayson Gerycz. Which live is just as harrowing as you’d imagine it would be. And there’s the rub. Hearing this album in its entirety live gives a very different vibe than it does in its recorded form. And perhaps that ruined me on this record a bit. Despite other reviews I’ve read touting the “better” recording, I actually find it kind of muddy and lacking the immediacy of their in-person performance, and even the grit of some of their former albums. And I don’t know if its in the song writing, the playing or the production, but it’s missing some of their former dynamism. The drums feel a bit buried and somewhat subdued. The singing is also muted in a way Dylan Baldi’s singing/screaming shouldn’t be. He’s a raw-throated dude and the music should feature that. Instead there’s some effect put on that makes it more samey-samey from song to song than it should be. And, hey, maybe the dude was having some sort of throat issues during recording, but it’s lacking some of the power we’ve come to expect from him. Or some of the rawness, I suppose.

This is not all to say there aren’t decent songs on this record. Or that the whole album isn’t a success. It just feels inessential in some way I’d hoped it would be. Nothing in particular stands out. It doesn’t break the mold, but it also doesn’t reach the heights of its former… mold. It’s the bridge. Or the breakdown. It’s not a new verse in the Cloud Nothings’ oeuvre. I think there’s something about the second track, “Daggers of Light,” that gets under my skin in a bad way. It has this repetitive melody — if one could call it that — that sounds like something AI might write. And that song for some reason kind of throws me off for the rest of my time with the music. Because I can’t help but hear that same uninteresting repetition in multiple songs throughout. Like it left an echo on my soul or in my head that I can’t shake. The next song, “I’d Get Along” kind of had the same issue. Even if it’s just in my head. And, again, I think maybe it’s the muted production that — and forgive me, I know nothing about music production — sounds like everything is compressed to the hilt and puts everything at the same timbre. Because the next track, “Mouse Policy,” is great. It’s exactly what I’m looking for in a Cloud Nothings song. But even it just doesn’t hit my ear right in the recording. Those drums, man. I need them to be better sounding. I need that punk energy to be relayed the way it should be. It’s funny; I clicked through a bunch of other bands’ new YouTube videos who are on Pure Noise and I see what’s going on here. There’s some uniformity with their more post-hardcore bands. That sound. The Drug Church of it all. I see you. And I’m not thrilled about it. Bring back Albini. God? Satan?