A Short History Of Decay

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Few bands have embraced the pain-numbing qualities of shoegaze as fervently as Nothing, whose perpetual high-wire act between doomy distortion, dreamy pop, and grungy groove reflects Domenic Palermo’s mission to anesthetize the various traumas and tragedies that have plagued his life. On recent records, he’s grown increasingly comfortable with ripping off the Band-Aid and letting his voice hover above the noise. But even that incremental evolution won’t prepare you for the disarming delicacy and crisp clarity of <i>a short history of decay</i>’s “never come never morning,” an aching yet ascendant anthem that reaches for the skyscraping emotional peaks of U2’s <i>The Joshua Tree</i> and <i>Mellon Collie</i>-era Smashing Pumpkins. It’s but one of several tracks here that see Palermo switching off the fuzz box, with the cosmic country ballad “the rain don’t care” and the string-scraping hymn “purple strings” drifting toward the cinematic slowcore of Mazzy Star, Low, and Red House Painters. And when Palermo does dive back into the red, he’s as interested in exploiting the rhythmic potential of shoegaze as its sinus-clearing qualities: After all, any aspiring indie artist can fall under the blissful spell of <i>Loveless</i>, but, as “cannibal world” proves, only a true maverick would try to one-up Kevin Shields’ brain-bending drum ’n’ bass experiments on <i>m b v</i>.

via Apple Music