Album of the Week #7: Cloud Nothings - Here and Nowhere Else
This is Album of the Week #7 ~ This week's album is Cloud Nothings - Here and Nowhere Else
Year of Release: 2014
Genre(s): Post-Hardcore, Indie Rock
Country: United States
Length: 31 minutes
Listen! (Album.Link)
Excerpt from The Quietus:
And damn, the boy Baldi can write a hook. While Here And Nowhere Else is a noisy onslaught that rattles along at a cracking pace, there's a real sense of fun and catchy melodies that Billie Joe Armstrong would be proud of (especially album closer 'I'm Not Part Of Me'), which will probably see the album appropriated by beer-guzzling frat boys, despite lyrically being about life on the fringes – alienation, despair, heartache. More parallels with Cobain there, perhaps. Baldi told the A. V. Club around the release of Attack On Memory that he hadn't really listened to Nirvana, pinning any similarity in their sound to a mutual love of The Wipers. However, fans of Bleach and In Utero (and anyone yearning for what might have been as the circumstances surrounding Cobain's suicide are picked apart in ghoulish detail) should lap this shit up like milk-starved pussy cats.
Discussion points:
Have you heard this artist/album before? Is this your first time hearing?
Do you enjoy this genre? Is this an album you would have chosen?
Does this album remind you of something you've heard before?
What were the album's strengths or weaknesses?
Was there a standout track for you?
How did you hear the album? Where were you? What was your setup?
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I hadn't heard this album before, but I've heard one or two songs from Cloud Nothings (Hey Cool Kid comes to mind).
I liked this album well enough for the first half, but wouldn't have ranked it highly... until Pattern Walks and I'm Not Part Of Me. I listened to those a few times on repeat. The noise and aggressive drums really brought the beginning of the album into focus, and I think the songwriter really did a lot better with the little longer form song in Pattern Walks. A little more melodic guitar work came through there too, and all those came together to make something I really vibed with.
I get the sense that this band changes stylistically a bit from album to album, so I'll have to go do a bit of digging to see if anything else from their discography matches how I felt about the last two songs here.
I enjoyed this one, thanks again for posting the albums of the week, I hope every one reading has a nice afternoon :)
My first time hearing this album too - I had almost identical thoughts! Those last two tracks really caught my attention where the earlier songs didn't, and I think show a band starting to play with the genre in interesting ways.
I usually wince at longer songs when I'm not already enjoying an album, but 'Pattern Walks' confidently grows into its runtime. 'I'm Not Part Of Me' is a really cathartic closer with a great hook - reminded me very much of The National's 'Mr November' in that way.
A great comparison, and an old favorite of mine. Alligator as an album holds a special place in my heart, but I acknowledge there's some hit or miss that got ironed out by Boxer. But the end of that album is catharsis and energy just like the end of this one.