Cloud Nothings
Life Without Sound

The transition from the twenties to the thirties becoming increasingly imminent, leaving home, the responsibilities and having to make important choices, the fear of not making it on your own, the pessimism about a future that’s still unknown and uncertain. Many questions, days spent reflecting without reaching any conclusions. Many fists pounded against the wall, so much time wasted for nothing.

Looking at the lyrics of “Life Without Sound”, there is much restlessness even in young Dylan Baldi. A common denominator clearly present in a generation of young people, of which I myself am still a part.

But let's also talk about positive feelings, and such were those tied three years ago to listening to “Nowhere And Else”; it was almost love at first listen. Compulsive and wild repeats, album of the summer, album of the year tout court.

It was an album of urban noise, there was much urgency behind that album, it was an impetuous and youthful album, a noise-punk drive channeled magnificently into pop structures. There was enough to outshine the already good “Attack On Memory”.

Dylan is never idle. And so after “Nowhere And Else” comes the 2015 collaboration with Nathan Williams from Wavves in the equally good “No Life For Me”, a good training ground to keep the mind and body fit, a perfect bridge for “Life Without Sound” which represents the fourth effort of the Cleveland ensemble and sees the entry of new guitarist Chris Brown.

Dangerous title, but the bet can be said to be won, and we can say that the risk of a self-inflicted misstep generating easy humor has been clearly averted.
The cover again features a seascape in the foreground as in “Attack On Memory”. But the similarities stop here.

“Internal World” (Weezer of the Blue Album thanks) and “Modern Act” are examples of 90's college rock, excellent, for that matter, updated for the new generations, with the second standing out thanks to that pre-chorus that is destined to stick in your head within two listens, and that is already worth half the album. I am sure it will bring new listeners to the cause.

An album that, far from becoming a carbon copy of the previous success, charts various paths and moods and so while the previous one flowed smoothly and uniformly, this one tries to play among more stylistic registers, and approximately a good summary of all this are the two extremes “Up The Surface” (which flaunts an unprecedented piano line and a solemn solo) and “Realise My Fate” which is undoubtedly the gloomiest piece to emerge from Dylan Baldi's bedroom.
It is the victory of restlessness over ennui. It is the revisitation of the song form that is broken. These are the heavy steps of age beginning to become cumbersome.

If “Enter Entirely” and “Strange Year” will make the most uncompromising indie-rockers happy, from the cannon of “Darkened Rings”, fiery balls of feedback and distortions come out, a perfect revisitation of the abrasive urgency of the previous album.

It is an album at times wonderfully schizophrenic in holding together the two souls that are power-pop and post-hardcore, and this can be perceived even from the multiple vocal nuances that dress the individual songs. Symptoms of a period of transition and uncertainty that probably reflects the spirit of the restless Dylan.

If you can carve out some precious time, give these four guys from Ohio a chance. Because a life without sounds is like a rainbow without colors or a black and white sunset.