Cloud Nothings
Attack On Memory

After 365 days from their previous album, the Cleveland-based Cloud Nothings return with a record produced by Steve Albini.

I'm going to kill you, you cursed noise fetishist, I'll probe your guts with a scalpel, I'll rape your womb, I'll explode your brains. Why did you have to do this to a band that sounded so raw and honest? Why them too, Steve? Why did you have to make them so antiseptic? I'll sabotage your brakes. I'll suffocate you in your sleep. I'll sever your nerve endings.

After just 365 days from their second self-titled album, a record that despite not being a masterpiece for me (I repeat: for me) meant a lot: a very fresh, fast, fun, raucous, exciting, and adolescent indie-pop-punk record. Adolescent, yes, an adolescence capable of creating pearls full of naïveté like "I always knew I'd follow you/And now I know that is much better" repeated ad infinitum. Nerd-punk like Weezer, better than Weezer. A year later this adolescence is no longer there, or almost, because Dylan Baldi and his buddies decided to let a mature person into their playground, the most sought-after producer of the last twenty years, the Brian Eno of distortion.

Damned be you! I'd bulldoze you in the rehearsal room with a caterpillar and crush you all together with the instruments. I listened to that carefree record of yours the very day I got dumped by my girlfriend. It allowed me, at least for 28 straight minutes, not to wallow in self-pity as it was so full of life and nonsense. You were cool and genuine, and now you've decided to play grown-ups. Albini is to you like the cigarette brandished by 14-year-olds with pimples and bad smells to feel adult. I'd split you open like mussels under the blows of my axe. I'd blast your features. I'd wreck your skulls. I'd vivisect you. I'd open you. I'd vomit you. I'd urinate you. I'd...

After just a year "Attack on Memory" gives a completely different sound to Cloud Nothings. Just listen to the first two tracks, or rather just look at them: from the punk fervor of the short songs of the first two albums, they have moved to 4 minutes and 39 seconds of "No Future/No Past" and 8 and 52 of "Wasted Days".

May your goldfish explode! But what is this? Have you turned into Radiohead? But above all - @!$£?!* - the Radiohead of "Hail to The Thief"?! What genre is that? Punk-slowcore? And then it's not "Wasted Days"... those are the days you wasted making a song that begins all nice and quick and then turns into a post-rock mush in the style of "Sonic-Youth-get-back-together" from hell in the pod machine! Do I have to smack you? Just wait while I get the jack.

There are still tracks that vaguely recall the old style, like the melancholy adrenaline rush of "Fall In" and the sniffing-worthy powerpop chorus of "Stay Useless".

Ah, so you can still do it? I'd hack your calves with a katana. I'd strip the flesh from your shins. I'd brand your foreheads. Why these nice little pieces amidst that stuff? Because much you suck live and I want to see if you can pull them off. Grgnnengnnengnggrgrrrr... I believe that on the cover you've timidly written your name so small: that way one has to put their nose 2mm from the CD and then you pop up and play a prank. You push the record against the recipient's face: it breaks and little pieces of plexiglas go into the poor sap's eyes. Sadists.

But it's just a blurred memory because the subsequent "Separation" is an instrumental piece starting from the canonical punk base only to veer into noisy dissonances. And the remaining tracks continue in this more composed and thoughtful vein. Which doesn't mean they're of poor quality.

For you, there are blades. Hand grenades. Molotovs. Chainsaws. Set the powders alight. Smelly meteors on your houses. Muriatic acid!

"Attack on Memory" is objectively an excellent and yet baffling record for those who have heard the previous ones. A maturation that less talented bands would achieve in 10 years, not in only 12 months. An album in which the direct and unfiltered speed of punk sits in an armchair to reflect, and when it's just about to fall asleep, it recovers in a nostalgic surge and jumps around a bit with all its shoes on the tea table. But then, gracefully, it recomposes itself and sits back down again to reflect seriously. Beautiful, yes. Recommended for post-hardcore enthusiasts who don't take themselves too seriously. For fans of Steve Albini, Fucked Up, Radiohead, and noisy but not too noisy, ambitious yet intimate tunes. Let's say a 4-star album.

But I don't want to grow up. Growing up is scary. I hate you. And I won't give you a score. And I'll send you anthrax letters.