Attack On Memory

AlbumJan 24 / 20128 songs, 33m 51s
Post-Hardcore Indie Rock Emo
Popular Highly Rated

In 2009, Cleveland’s Dylan Baldi began writing and recording lo-fi power-pop songs in his parents’ basement, dubbing the project Cloud Nothings. His music quickly started making the Internet rounds, and fans and critics alike took note of his pithy songcraft, infectiously catchy melodies, and youthful enthusiasm. Baldi soon released a string of 7”s, a split cassette, and an EP before putting out "Turning On"—a compilation spanning about a year’s worth of work—on Carpark in 2010. January 2011 saw the release Cloud Nothings’ self-titled debut LP, which, put next to Turning On, found Baldi cleaning up his lo-fi aesthetic, pairing his tales of affinitive confusion with a more pristine aural clarity. In the interval since the release of Cloud Nothings, Baldi has toured widely and put a great deal of focus on his live show, a detail that heavily shapes the music of his follow-up album, "Attack on Memory." After playing the same sets nightly for months on end, Baldi saw the rigidity of his early work, and he wanted to create arrangements that would allow for more improvisation and variability when played on the road. To accomplish this desired malleability, the entire band decamped to Chicago—where the album was recorded with Steve Albini—and all lent a hand in the songwriting process. The product of these sessions is a record boasting features that, even at a glance, mark a sea change in the band’s sound: higher fidelity, a track clocking in at almost nine minutes, an instrumental, and an overall more plaintive air. The songs move along fluidly, and Baldi sounds assured as he brings his vocals up in the mix, allowing himself to hold out long notes and put some grain into his voice. Minor key melodies abound, drums emphatically contribute much more than mere timekeeping, and the guitar work is much more adventurous than that of previous releases. For all of early Cloud Nothings’ fun and fervor, Baldi admits that it never sounded like most of the music he listens to. With "Attack on Memory," he wanted to remedy this anomaly, and in setting out to do so, Baldi and co. have created an album that shows vast growth in a still very young band.

8.6 / 10

Now a roaring, technically adept band rather than Dylan Baldi's bedroom solo project, Cloud Nothings undergo a total overhaul on their bracing Steve Albini-recorded second LP.

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Cloud Nothings’ 20-year-old singer-songwriter Dylan Baldi has described the Cleveland band’s latest LP as “an attack on the memory of what people thought the band was.” That might sound grandiose, but the tortured smoldering of Attack On Memory’s opening track “No Future/No Past” is about as far removed from the…

8 / 10

8 / 10

Cloud Nothings return with their third album, Attack on Memory. But does it erase all traces of what's gone before it?

8.0 / 10

It’s hard to avoid reading too much into a record cover when its name is proudly proclaiming an Attack on Memory . It also…

Check out our album review of Artist's Attack on Memory on Rolling Stone.com.

Oddly, it’s an album that allows its listener to enjoy the misery on show.

Despite the kill-the-past title Attack on Memory, Cloud Nothings' second album conjures up the ghosts of bands such as Nirvana, Unwound, and Fugazi -- acts whose heydays occurred when Dylan Baldi was a tyke, and all of them far heavier than his previous work.

7.0 / 10

Those familiar with the two- to three-minute melodic power pop blasts of Dylan Baldi’s self-titled debut as Cloud Nothings will be mighty surprised by Baldi’s sophomore offering.

7 / 10

Less than a year after the release of their self-titled debut album, the Cleveland collective - fronted by the prodigious Dylan Baldi - ramp their sound up a notch or three on this Steve Albini-produc

7 / 10

On their latest, Cloud Nothings have never sounded so sure of their abilities.

8 / 10

Rather than being just Dylan Baldi recording pop-punk songs in his bedroom this is now a proper band with considerable chops, writes <strong>Tom Hughes</strong>

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3.0 / 5

Cloud Nothings - Attack on Memory review: Like that chill kid you knew who came back from college a philosophy major and a total drag.