Cloud Nothings @ Hare and Hounds, 21st March, 2017
Arriving late for the gig we enter mid-song to catch the last three by support for Cloud Nothings, singer-songwriter Cian Nugent. It’s a soft and sweet voice that muses gently over an atonal acoustic guitar. It battles against a few chatterers but for the most part he has the audience hushed and reverential.
The penultimate song is played on a beautiful and well worn Stratocaster with a tone that matches his voice, a Kevin Ayers number but apologies for I cannot tell you if it is a solo effort or a Soft Machine song; mesmerising nonetheless. One more of equal stature and then he’s done. I’d like to hear more before I can confirm the quality but if you like quiet solo artists then this guy is worth your time.
Next up is Cleveland,Ohio’s Cloud Nothings. I first came across these in a small aircraft hanger at a festival in Porto at about 3am whilst tired and, errr… emotional, so to speak. I was mightily impressed by these Indie/College Rockers. So here we are now in dark, dreary and damp Birmingham, a million miles away from warm and breezy Portugal… and I’m sober. So let’s see if I was correct about these fellas in the cold, dark of night!
Without fanfare, they take to the stage and without much in way of an introduction they proceed to entertain the large Hare and Hounds audience with a set made predominantly from tracks from their new album “Life Without Sound”. It is what it says on the tin I guess given that this is the title of the tour.
Launching with the album opener, “Up To The Surface”, a subtler and more subdued offering than I recall through my Superbok addled memory of Porto, they set the tone for the majority of the set. A sloppy and laid back run through the new album and selected others from their back catalogue. Now, don’t take that as a criticism. I love sloppy like this. It’s the sloppiness of The Lemonheads and Pavement and all the other plaid wearing college rock bands from the 90’s when music was super cool.
The drums of Jayson Gerycz are constant and set a snappy but steady beat for the rest of the band to play around and whereas they sound tight on their recorded output they seem to fall in and around the beat live. It gives that organic feel that I want to hear at a live gig. Some band’s songs demand a precision that means that you get a near to accurate version of their recorded output and some bands need to feel ‘live’. In my opinion, these guys need to be heard raw, and their songs are all the better for it.
The set bounces along nicely throughout, with little or no banter between songs, Dylan Baldi, the Cloud Nothings guitarist, vocalist and songwriter, lets the music do the talking. Songs like “Enter Entirely” veer from simple guitar lines and relaxed vocals to an explosive overdriven crunchy guitar ending, whereas “I’m Not Part of Me” lift the pace and the crowd a little from nodding to bouncing. The laconic delivery of it’s chorus and middle eight, both in terms of it’s content and static delivery make the verses all the more bounce-worthy. That pretty much stands for a majority of their songs though.
“Modern Act”, the first single from the new album is an headlong rush that showcases what a great songwriter Dylan is and just how good the band work as a unit. For pure hookiness of a chorus though, it is “Fall In” from the second album “Attack On Memory” that does it for the crowd.
Bookending the set is the closing song from the latest album, “Realize My Fate”. It’s a big song to end a good set and we leave the venue feeling replete from the early evening curry, some good beer and a some class alternative rock / post-punk pokiness!
Reviewer: Mark Veitch