Cloakroom

The Arc of Cloakroom

The pivots — what forced Cloakroom to reinvent.

1. 01

   The Earth Analog Sessions

   Setting up camp at Matt Talbott's studio in Illinois set the early template for 'Infinity' and 'Further Out'. Recording directly to tape forced the trio to nail massive dynamic swings in full takes rather than stitching them together in a DAW. You hear it in the way the cymbals wash out and the low end sags under heavy distortion, giving midwestern slowcore a massive, concussive wallop.

2. 02

   The Relapse Jump & Space Rock Pivots

   Signing to Relapse for 'Time Well' and 'Dissolution Wave' pushed them far past standard doom or shoegaze tropes into full-blown sci-fi worldbuilding. They leaned harder into cosmic pedal manipulations, open-tuned Americana arpeggios, and cleaner vocal deliveries without dropping the crushing low end. It turns the sludge into something airy, strange, and completely distinct from their heavy-touring peers.

Influences

• Hum — Matt Talbott produced their foundational records at Earth Analog and practically mentored the band's studio philosophy. You hear the direct DNA in the drop-tuned, massive guitar swells anchored against clean vocal melodies. They took the 'You'd Prefer an Astronaut' playbook and dragged it through three feet of mud.
• Codeine — Frontman Doyle Martin has repeatedly cited slowcore pioneers as the rhythmic bedrock of what Cloakroom does. The agonizingly slow tempos and dynamic restraint on tracks like 'Bending' come straight from the Codeine catalog. It's the art of letting silence carry as much weight as a fuzz pedal.
• Songs: Ohia — Jason Molina's stark, rust-belt songwriting is the secret heart beneath Cloakroom's mountain of guitar pedals. Martin pulls his lyrical imagery and mournful, midwestern vocal phrasing directly from Molina's electric era records like 'Magnolia Electric Co.' Strip away the distortion and you're left with pure prairie-goth country.
• Failure — The band took explicit cues from Ken Andrews' obsession with spatial sound design and bass guitar crunch. You can hear Failure's 'Fantastic Planet' in how Cloakroom tracks their bass lines, using thick modulation to bridge clean guitars with crushing low-end grit. It's space rock built on heavyweight hardware.
• Swervedriver — Adam Franklin's blueprint of marrying heavy American muscle riffs with British shoegaze textures is all over Cloakroom's early EPs. Instead of wispy dream-pop, they borrowed Swervedriver's roaring, engine-idle guitar voicings. It gave them permission to play loud and melodic at the exact same time.