Tag Archives: Cloud Nothings

Cloud Nothings: Fall In (video)

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It’s mid-October, which means a couple of things: 1.) I haven’t posted in almost a month (crap). 2.) Music bloggers/nerds are already freaking out about year-end lists. I haven’t really done one in about two years, but if, say, I were to create one this year, it would be difficult to envision a list that didn’t include Cloud Nothings’ Attack On Memory.

I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again: I can’t shake this feeling that I’ve heard Attack on Memory before – in a previous life, sometime in college, so many years ago. I know I’m starting to sound like a nostalgic asshole, but I mean it more as a great compliment. The instant comparison for me is Pinehurst Kids, but Cloud Nothings frontman Dylan Baldi, 20, was probably about 4 years old when Pinehurst Kids formed, so who knows if he’s ever heard of them.

Regardless, I’d encourage fans of Cloud Nothings to check out Viewmaster, the 2000 release by Pinehurst Kids. The similarities are eerie, if not pretty comforting – Cloud Nothings are more punishing musically in spots but no less melodic.

“Fall In,” for which they have a new video, is a great example. John Ryan Manning, who also directed the awesome “No Future/No Past” video, is responsible for this one as well:

Tuesday night: Cloud Nothings at Crescent Ballroom

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No album of this young year has quite held my attention like Attack on Memory from Cleveland’s Cloud Nothings.

Produced by Steve Albini, Attack has successfully transported me to my collegiate days, a time of musical maturation/realization that I’ll always cherish. When I turned on Attack on Memory for my wife, her response (as usual) summed up perfectly in three words what I struggle to say in 300: “This sounds familiar.”

It could be all that Sunny Day Real Estate, Pinehurst Kids and Seven Storey Mountain – with a touch of Jawbox and Jawbreaker – that I forced on her in my attempts to win her over (success!). And it all makes me feel a little old and relatively unaccomplished to think that the brainchild behind Cloud Nothings, Dylan Baldi, is 20 years old – in other words, he was about three years old when I was entering college and experiencing a musical awakening of bands that seemingly influenced his art.

Too bad I can’t buy him a drink on Tuesday night at Crescent Ballroom, but it doesn’t change the fact that Attack is one of the early greats of 2012.

Check the video below for the album’s leadoff track “No Future/No Past,” with direction by Ryan Manning. Read more about its creation here.