Last Building Burning

Album review

Cloud Nothings are nostalgic for real rock. Rock that leaves a mark, that attacks the ears and makes you sweat. Last Building Burning brings Dylan Baldi (vocals), TJ Duke (bass), Joe Boyer (guitar) and Jason Gerycz (drums) back once more for a hardcore sequence of pop-punk tunes. Harder, more authentic, and filthier than their previous Life Without Sound, this has to be their best record to date. Baldi has always been drawn to a certain weight and darkness in music. From the first bar here he is bellowing over frenetic guitars on On An Edge, a song that poses a real risk to your vertebrate, so violent is the headbanging. At the end of the third track, In Shame, the album begins to feel more like a psychological S&M session than anything else. "They won't remember my name, I'll be alone in my shame" he sings on a loop. Themes like finality and radical change keep popping up and sometimes give the impression that Cloud Nothings are trying to break free… Last Building Burning is literally explosive! Their raw, mangled sound! The fatalist, authentic vision! Recorded in just eight days and produced by Randall Dunn, Cloud Nothings have delivered a bloody-knuckled knockout album. These are some talented lads without a doubt: but they’re also capable of surprising us, one piece (Dissolution) runs to eleven minutes and becomes a meditation on a chaos of echoes. There's more to this band than meets the eye… © Anna Coluthe/Qobuz