If that’s true, it’s only slightly true.

There are tracks throughout Life Without Sound that pummel as hard as anything in Cloud Nothings’ catalogue, with production quality that slays and unbridled aggression that captures much of what Cloud Nothings has become known for. Tracks like “Darkened Rings” or “Strange Year” carry much of the craziness of albums like Here and Nowhere Else.

In other words, this isn’t exactly the sort of record you’d want to meditate to.

That being said, there are new sounds on Life Without Sound. The band is more tuneful than ever before. The album opener, “Up to the Surface”, carries a piano in its intro and builds through a nearly pop-punk introduction. “Internal World” and “Enter Entirely” take their influence from bands like Weezer (and even some classic rock).

For Cloud Nothings, this is par for the course. Cloud Nothings’ trademark is our inability to know what an album is going to sound like upon release, and Life Without Sound is no different.

That’s not to say that Cloud Nothings is making music that sounds unlike themselves. They’re not making pop music, after all. But they’re embracing a method of songwriting that sounds less rushed and more tuneful. It’s a step in a new direction, but not necessarily a commercial one.

For the first time, Cloud Nothings just sounds optimistic.

Well, as optimistic as Cloud Nothings can sound.

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It’s actually way too easy to throw around the indie rock or alternative labels around these days, because Speedy Ortiz is much more punk like. But not punk in the way that a lot of us recognize punk — the big, brash guitars and fast-paced breakneck speeds — but the subversive sort of punk.

If you like Mother, Mother, but wish they were just a little bit weirder these days, or think that punk music is lacking in originality these days, Speedy Ortiz should be one of your first stops. Chock full of huge riffs and just-slightly-unsettling tonal ranges, Foil Deer is an album worth listening to again and again and again.

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Now Hear In might sound noisy, but there’s a shouted melody to it that never descends into anything obnoxious. And yet the punk energy is there all the way throughout. Psychic Trauma isn’t just a bunch of guys smashing some drums and power chords, and while Pattern Walks ends up getting heavier than some listeners might feel comfortable with, it’s immediately followed up with the more radio-friendly I’m Not Part Of Me.

It’s hard to find a track I dislike, and while I might not be throwing this on at house parties like I did with Celebration Rock for a while, this is going to get some heavy rotation in the car with the window rolled down. I think my favourite track is Quieter Today.

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