Venue:
Hare and Hounds, Birmingham
Date: 22/03/2017
The Cloud Nothings have been offering reliably fizzy punkypop from for seven years now, and their albums Cloud Nothings (11 songs in 28 minutes!), Attack on Memory, Here and Nowhere else and new one Life Without Sound are all excellent. So after support from Irish musicblog-friendly solo troubadour Cian Nugent here they are at Hare and Hounds just down the road.
It’s Dylan Baldi’s band – situated stage left in long greasy hair, beard and hoodie. The rest of the band fan out – strong silent type bass player and new lead guitarist who has the rocking along to the music move really down. They have the melody/noise balance just right, and if they’ve a standout player it’s drummer Jayson Gerycz who gets a huge amount from a minimal kit. They’re as tight as you’d expect from a band five albums in and play a crisp hour-long set. No between-song banter and no encore, which I think is the right way to go for a gig this size. Just 15 or so songs taken at a pretty fast lick.
What do they sound like? Inevitably heavier and faster than on record, they sit in the middle of an imaginary triangle anchored by Husker Du, Geffen era Sonic Youth and early Teenage Fanclub. Standout tracks were Fall In, I’m not a Part of Me (a proper earworm) and epic closer Realize My Fate.
If I had a caveat, the backing vocals mics were too rarely used, leaving Baldi’s voice on ‘throaty scream’ setting the sole voice in the mix. On record the more tuneful vocals provide a great contrast with the buzzsaw guitars.
The audience:
Plaid shirts from 18 to 68. A few 18 year olds were even moshing – bless.
It made me think..
I’m guessing they don’t make it over from Ohio to Kings Heath that often, so we’re grateful for the chance to hear a top-notch live act 10 mins from home.
if I have a question, it’s how do the economics of a band like the CN’s stack up for transcontinental touring, playing to 200 odd punters a night at £10 each.
The actual gigs could probably break even if well-selected and promoted, but they’d have to at least have their airfare and gear/truck hire paid by somebody.
Saw them in Bristol last week. Quite enjoyed the new album but not the show – very unusually for me I was a bit unenthralled. Not sure why – not much stage presence/audience connection and everything a bit too blokey – band and audience. Maybe I was having an off night Thankfully the Lemon Twigs restored my equilibrium this week.
I was at Bristol as well. I wasn’t hugely into it either. I’d put it down to spending all day in a meeting in Reading and then rushing back out again once I’d got home but maybe it wasn’t me, it was them. The last album is growing on me quite a lot, though (after not liking the previous, but loving the one previous to the previous).
@anton I definitely think some of the tunefulness of their records was sacrificed for rocking out. There are always enough significant others at the Hare and Hounds to prevent complete blokiness, though definitely more plaid shirt than say Josefin Ohrn.
@moseleymoles – I thought the latest album was definitely a big improvement tune-wise on its predecessor. Wasn’t expecting the full “Good evening Bristol” but a bit of eye contact never goes amiss…by contrast the Twigs (who I can well imagine could be very off-putting for many*) just had a bit more charm.
* 2 American brothers with retro hair singing songs in high voices…..whatever next?
on a more positive note tre new Surfer Blood album is blooming’ lovely
Ooh, is it? I lost track of them after Pythons. I’m not sure anything could live up to the debut.
It’s lovely …. I may be a bit pissed but check it out