Cloud Nothings

Life Without Sound

Image of Cloud Nothings - Life Without Sound

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Cloud Nothings are back with ‘Life Without Sound’, the follow up to 2014’s ‘Here And Nowhere Else’, on Wichita Recordings.

Lead singer and guitarist Dylan Baldi maintains simple, admirable standards in quality. “A thing I like to do with all of my records is drive around with them,” the 25-year-old Cloud Nothings frontman says. “In high school, I would listen to music for hours like that: just driving through the suburbs of Cleveland. And if it sounds good to me in that context and I can think of high school me listening to it and saying, ‘That’s okay,’ I feel good about the record. This is the one that’s felt best.”

‘Life Without Sound’ is the radiant fourth full length Cloud Nothings have recorded since Baldi began writing and releasing songs on his own under the Cloud Nothings alias in 2008. While its highly acclaimed predecessor, 2014’s ‘Here And Nowhere Else’, came together spontaneously in the little time that touring allowed, ‘Life Without Sound’ took shape under far less frenetic circumstances.

For more than a year, Baldi was able to write these songs and flesh out them out with his bandmates - drummer Jayson Gerycz and bassist TJ Duke - before they finally joined producer John Goodmanson (Sleater Kinney, Death Cab For Cutie) at Sonic Ranch in El Paso, Texas for three weeks in March of 2016. The result is Baldi’s most polished and considered work to date, an album that speaks to his evolving gift with melody while also betraying the sort of perspective that time provides.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: I used to listen to quite a lot of skate-punk and hardcore in my youth, whilst this is definitely not that, it has a similar sort of Loud-less loud-loud vibe going on. 'Modern Act' is a perfectly balanced slice of anthemic punky rock, inc. semi-snarled vocals and youthful exhuberance, punctuated with almost clean-cut interludes before breaking forth into another bombastic energetic exaltation. Peppered with moments of pure energetic brilliance, and bulked out with even more moments of bracing and dynamic expertise.

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