Cloud Nothings - Last Building Burning (Album Review)
This 8-song album is engaging from start to finish with excellent riffs, fantastic drumming and some brilliant lyrics.
The first song is perhaps a weak start to the album, "On An Edge" feeling lacking in terms of production and the overall quality, Dylan Baldi's aggressive vocals buried in the mix, missing the mark and resulting in a disappointing, loud song without sufficient drive from the vocals or the bass.
After this song things immediately improve with the brilliant "Leave Him Now", perhaps the most catchy song on the album. It is driven by some fantastic riffs and great lyrics. Throughout the album Dylan self-deprecates and criticises himself and on this tune it's at its most subtle, which starkly contrasts the next song "In Shame" for its very obvious self criticisms.
The guitars are rougher on this song, the vocals sounding pained and emotionally raw. Despite being instantly hooked by the instrumentation on this song it has taken me a while to truly appreciate the singing, although I'm at a point where I can definitely get behind Dylan's rough vocals.
On "The Echo Of The World" his singing is at its roughest and most raw. This is a very aggressive song Instrumentally and definitely a favourite for me, the drums really excelling here. It definitely surpasses "Offer An End", a catchy song with some great guitar riffs that all add up to a really good song but one that seems to just slightly fall short of the highlights and standouts on the album. That's not to say it won't grow on me given more time, I've definitely had that happen with similar songs before, recently with "Hello Today" that I initially underlooked on Black Honey's debut.
Back to the album at hand, let's talk about the elephant in the room. "Dissolution" is an instrumentally driven song with one humongous flaw. It's over 10 minutes long. Most of it is very enjoyable but the breakdown just takes too long, I end up losing interest after 2 minutes of sparse, lackluster percussion. It's unfortunate as it could be a perfectly good song and a highlight on the album if it halfed its runtime.
"So Right So Clean" is refreshing after the dull drag of "Dissolution", achieving everything the band tries for in one fantastic song, with some of the best lyrics from Dylan on the album. This is followed by the closing song "Another Way Of Life", taking a turn into simpler territory that is thankfully not acoustic. One thing that I think would elevate the song is a piano or synthesizer to strike the chords. I feel like this would lift the song in a grander direction to really fill some space in the same way Boston Manor did on their recent album.
Overall it's a great effort from this band, probably not a contestant for album of the year but I strong project I'll come back to lots in the future. I have to give this a very light 8 out of 10, it's some of the best and darkest indie rock of the year for sure.
Best Songs:
Leave Him Now, In Shame, The Echo Of The World, So Right So Clean, Another Way Of Life
Worst Song: On An Edge
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