Showing posts with label Ohio. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ohio. Show all posts

Monday, September 7, 2020

Albums of the Decade - 41. Cloud Nothings - Attack on Memory (2012)

41. CLOUD NOTHINGS - ATTACK ON MEMORY (2012)

"I THOUGHT I WOULD BE MORE THAN THIIIIIIIIIIS!" screams Dylan Baldi on Wasted Days" - a 9 minute epic of feeling deep inside ones own filth - an existential nightmare - a putrid stain on humanity. This is the standout track from one of the bands of the decade - a screechy, kick-up-the-jams punk band with great pop hooks.

"Fall In" - the track that follows it - has a drive that propels it past ska- but makes me wanna do just that - immerse myself in the crash, rattle and roll. This is a proper band that takes influences like Smashing Pumpkins and Thin Lizzy and straps on dynamite, sherbert and apple cider vinegar to explode something that is all at once bitter, dangerous but frothy sweet.

Snotty punk. Dylan Baldi is not a brat. He is just mis-under-fucking-stood, like a lot of us. I never used to like shouty-shout until I witnessed this - now I'm fully on board - I almost went to Berlin a couple of years ago, solely to see them, but instead kicked the can in my dead-end job, only to grow more frustrated, only to play Cloud Nothing more, only to increase their value and effect with no mercy to spare.





Tuesday, September 24, 2019

Albums of the Decade - 82. The National - High Violet

82. THE NATIONAL - HIGH VIOLET 

Controversial winners of the list from the last decade with Boxer, ahead of Kid A, though that's debatable now, The National brought this record out at the top of the decade. It also, like Boxer, came at a really critical part of my life, as I upped sticks and went to study an intensive teacher-training course in Budapest for a month, in May 2010.

Songs like "Terrible Love," "Sorrow" and "England" were massively flooding me with affectation, as I was walking the streets of the brand new Central European city with coffees, beers and palinkas. Studying and not studying. Falling in and out of love. Coming to terms with my mid-twenties and feeling lost and found.

As one decade ends and another is set to begin, this band remain a special entity. They have evolved into a spellbinding institution, one that explores, delves deeper and enthralls. A full-bodied evolution after Boxer; this band are the crème de la creme. Stirred, not shaken plz.