Album Review: Cloud Nothings - Life Without Sound

After a couple of years of wilful experimentation — first, remixing their previous album Here And Nowhere Else (2014) for Record Store Day and then releasing a split-LP with Californian brats Wavves (2015's No Life For Me) — indie-rockers Cloud Nothings' fourth studio album proper finds them cleaning up their act sonically, alternating between their burgeoning power-pop leanings and the harder, post-hardcore edge of their earlier lo-fi recordings.

There's plenty of familiarity still on offer: frontman Dylan Baldi once more packs plenty of emotional heft into his tales of 20-something angst and ennui, but alongside producer John Goodmanson (Sleater-Kinney, Death Cab For Cutie) he's polished away their rougher edges, leaving a more measured and mature collection with less of the abandon that categorised earlier releases. Indeed, when Baldi gets really ruminative with his lyrics it all veers close to emo territory (in a Jimmy Eat World rather than Rites Of Spring construct).

The breezy Internal World and poppy Modern Act make obvious singles — both rife with Baldi's trademark hooks and earworm melodies — but the contemplative Things Are Right With You and the conversational Sight Unseen burn just as bright. Elsewhere, Enter Entirely is a fist-pumping pit anthem in waiting and Realize My Fate closes on a burst of despairing dissonance, a strangely nihilistic finish to a collection of songs that for the most part aim to inspire rather than dishearten.