ISOBEL MOHYEDDIN // Ohio-natives Cloud Nothings are set to perform at the 9:30 Club on May 20th with Daniel Bachman as their opening act. Their sixth studio album Life Without Sound was released earlier this year, and marks a clear shift in the band’s sound — distancing themselves from their lo-fi roots.
Cloud Nothings emerged from humble beginnings in the dawn of the internet age. Dylan Baldi, the band’s creator and lead singer, began posting songs like “Hey Cool Kid” and “Whaddya Wanna Know” on his MySpace page as an 18-year-old college dropout. The former is still one of the band’s most popular tracks, and these basement recordings led him to performing with acts such as Real Estate.
Forming in 2009, Cloud Nothings has reinvented their sound with every new record put out, consistently improving with every new release. Over their 11 year career, Cloud Nothings has experimented with their fair share of genres, from lo-fi pop to indie rock, however Life Without Sound features the band’s most realized and polished sound to date.
With themes of introspection and loneliness running throughout the nine-track LP, Life Without Sound tells the story of someone trying to find their place in the world through tracks like “Things Are Right With You” and “Internal World”. Easy to listen to, this album is promising guitar-driven indie music that stands out against many other releases from this year. Baldi and the rest of the band spent over a year fine-tuning and perfecting the immensely reflective album, and the hard work paid off. The 2017 release earned critical acclaim from outlets like Pitchfork and Consequence of Sound, earning a 7.0 and an A-, respectively.
Tickets are available here