The Nothing - A Short History of Decay (CD)

Nothing have always been rule-breakers. Shoegaze renegades who've rebuilt the stereotypically lightweight genre in their own bloodyknuckled American image. Outlaw poets spilling existential dread on mile-wide canvasses of fuzz and reverb. Beginning as a Philly-born bedroom solo project in 2010, Nothing's music has always captured the full scale of the human condition, both the blaring anger and the whispering sadness. a short history of decay,Nothing's fifth solo album and first for Run For Cover Records, widens that aperture even further, providing the most hi-def rendering of Nothing to date. The band have never sounded this colossal, never felt this intimate, never been this honest. With the strongest arsenal in Nothing's ever-shifting lineup locked in - guitarist Doyle Martin (Cloakroom), bassist Bobb Bruno (Best Coast), drummer Zachary Jones (MSC, Manslaughter 777), and third guitarist Cam Smith (Ladder To God, also of Cloakroom) - singer-songwriter Domenic Nicky Palermo knew he had the manpower to make the band's most ambitious record yet. Co-written and produced with Whirr guitarist Nicholas Bassett, and with additional production and mixing work from Sonny Diperri (DIIV, Julie), a short history of decay, is the most evolved musical statement in Nothing's catalog. Songs like Cannibal World and Toothless Coal are cataclysmic lashings of mechanized industrial-gaze that sound like My Bloody Valentine - except more extreme. On the other end of the spectrum, the ornately morose Purple Strings boasts a beautiful string arrangement that includes harpist - and two-time Nothing contributor - Mary Lattimore. That baroque delicacy permeates other a short history of decay, highlights, particularly The Rain Don't Care, a lilting ballad that channels the worn-down elegance of Mojave 3, and also Nerve Scales, a pattering bop that resembles Radiohead in it's marriage of otherworldly atmosphere and mortal precision. Palermo calls the new record a final chapter. Not the end of Nothing, but the conclusion of a story that began with Nothing's 2014 debut, Guilty of Everything- another album about time, regret, and confronting uncomfortable truths - and now resolves with a short history of decay,. As much a snapshot of Palermo's past as it is a leap into Nothing's future.