John Goodmanson – Unsung Sundays https://unsungsundays.com What you should be listening to. Wed, 31 Jan 2018 14:49:57 +0000 en-CA hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=5.2.1 Cloud Nothings: Life Without Sound https://unsungsundays.com/album-reviews/cloud-nothings-life-without-sound/ Thu, 02 Feb 2017 21:44:55 +0000 http://unsungsundays.com/?post_type=album_reviews&p=1635 Life Without Sound is another surprise from Cloud Nothings — a band who consistently defies expectations. This time around, the band pursues a more tuneful punk sound.

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]]> Lead singer Dylan Baldi calls Cloud Nothings’ Life Without Sound his take on New Age music. It’s an implication that the band is calming down, and abandoning their fuzzy punk roots.

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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]]> Sleater-Kinney: No Cities To Love https://unsungsundays.com/album-reviews/sleater-kinney-no-cities-to-love/ Sun, 17 Jan 2016 13:06:07 +0000 http://unsungsundays.com/?post_type=album_reviews&p=79 Sleater-Kinney come roaring back from a hiatus that was much too long with what might be one of 2015's best rock albums. With all guns blazing and all speakers blaring, the women pound through rock riff after rock riff — and prove that, perhaps surprisingly, not much has changed in the past ten years.

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]]> If this is your first time hearing about them, Sleater-Kinney isn’t a law firm, despite the name. In fact, for a period of time, some publications declared them one of the early 2000s’ most essential rock bands.

Their latest release, No Cities to Love, comes after a decade-long hiatus. It might be their best record, which is incredible. If you’ve been living under a rock, it received practically universal acclaim from critics last year and has been dominant on Best Of lists.

What makes the record so special isn’t just great songwriting or intricate and unique chunky riffs. It’s that all of this greatness is stuffed into a collection of raw, unnerving three-minute punk-like songs.

With great songwriting, awesome riffs, left-leaning politics, and perfect cover art, there isn’t much not to love here. You’re missing out if you haven’t heard No Cities to Love yet.

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