From the first moment of the first song, Dylan Baldi’s Cloud Nothings’ new LP Attack on Memory announces it is not going to be the light, sunny collection of songs written by a bored college student that the band’s last two albums were.
The opener, “No Future/No Past” (a dark title on an album full of them — “Stay Useless,” “No Sentiment,” “Cut You,” etc.) begins with a mellow piano slowly rumbling over the low simmer of guitar and bass, and Baldi’s apathetic drawl as he mumbles “Giiiive uuuup” makes it eminently clear there won’t be much sunshine coming through the blinds of this dorm room (Baldi left Case Western Reserve University after his first semester in 2009 to focus on Cloud Nothings full-time).
He sings with the throaty wail of a young man who’s angry as hell but doesn’t have a clue what to do about it, which, along with his irately messy guitar playing, makes him sound like a more mature Kurt Cobain.
This impression is confirmed by angst-ridden lines such as “Never thought that I’d end up this way/ And I know it’s going to stay the same.” The album is as disgruntled as any early-’90s grunge opus record, but it’s less adolescent and more refined, focusing more on the inevitable letdowns of adult life than on the hormonal unease of the teenage years.
Gone is the lazy-Sunday vibe of the band’s debut, Turning On, and its self-titled follow-up; instead, Attack on Memory burns with the breakneck intensity of punk-rock rage.
Unlike punk, however, the anger isn’t directed externally, toward political targets. Rather, Baldi goes inward, reserving his scorn for the directionless ennui of post-adolesence. He’s still a slacker college kid, but he’s made an album detailing the inevitable disappointments of that lifestyle.
VERDICT: Cloud Nothings go effectively dark on Attack on Memory, their best album yet.
rgifford@umdbk.com
