“Exhausting the words you can’t get ahead of.”
For album five, most bands are winding down. Not Philadelphia shoegazers, Nothing. They’ve come a long way since their debut over a decade ago. If 2014’s Guilty of Everything was dangerous, serious and cathartic dream-rock, then each album after has honed and refined that sound into something blazingly cynical, viciously creative and highly original.
Many major players in Nothing’s vein have returned to their roots in the last few years. The Smashing Pumpkins went back to Mellon Collie-era territory for Aghori Mhori Mei and The Cure, producing their most Cure-like album for a decade. Instead, frontman, producer and creative architect Domenic “Nicky” Palermo has pushed forward.
In some ways, it’s a record of creative reincarnation. Palermo’s dedication to a constantly revolving roster means that each album no longer feels like a singular band in revolution but rather Palermo himself evolving his craft and approach to creativity. A Short History Of Decay is him finally fully breaking away from his dark hardcore punk roots; an example of how music can heal and harden the scars of anger and pain into something beautiful.
Opener “Never Come, Never Morning” buries its vocalist in wave after wave of Zachary Jones’ phenomenally tight yet immersive drums, guitar, and distortion, almost drowning lead singer Palmero’s vocal, before an almighty final-minute chorus lifts him from the flood. The brass from Jesus Ricardo Ayub Chavir is like a triumphant war call as he’s hoisted high above the rest of the mix.
Next is “Cannibal World”, a nihilistic euphoria which sees the entire band break into Underworld-style raving. Doyle Martin’s guitar is layered over Jones’ rabid percussion programming, hitting like a sweat-soaked, pill-fueled high. Think Hacienda hedonism warping to a thumping, crashing industrial-electronica meltdown later in the track. It’s bound to start more than a few circle pits as Palermo wonders aloud: “the enemy of my enemy is my friend, how very strange it is my friend”.
The quality of A Short History Of Decay continues to build over the first four tracks, but the record really reaches its peak with “Toothless Coal”. Its hissing Linkin Park-style opening fires into a musical whirlpool, sucking you in. Palermo tries a little Chino Moreno detachment, his abstract lyrics injecting a deep sense of transience and trauma as he mourns the cost of his craft (“fluently in our decadence / poetry it petrifies me / tying me in knots”). Elsewhere, Bobb Bruno powers in on bass, whilst additional guitars from producer Nicholas Bassett give the track a shimmering, surreal edge.
For all its confidence, not every experiment works. “Purple Strings”, for instance, drips with harp loops and string swells that, while beautiful, jar against the more cathartic aspects of Nothing‘s sound and lyrics. It’s a welcome experimentation that should have been reserved for a future release.
Portishead, Massive Attack or Sonic Youth, this is definitely not. It’s something grittier, darker and a little chaotic, trading art-school theoretics for raw, dangerous and yet beautiful practicality. A Short History of Decay at its finest is a defiantly messy, deeply human album. It finally reclaims Nothing’s story for the better.
8/10
A Short History of Decay releases through Run for Cover records on the 27th February and can be pre-ordered here.