Nothing have always been rule-breakers. Shoegaze renegades who’ve rebuilt the stereotypically lightweight genre in their own bloodyknuckled American image. Outlaw poets spilling existential dread on mile-wide canvasses of fuzz and reverb. Beginning as a Philly-born bedroom solo project in 2010, Nothing’s music has always captured the full scale of the human condition, both the blaring anger and the whispering sadness. A Short History of Decay, Nothing’s fifth solo album and first for Run For Cover Records, widens that aperture even further, providing the most hi-def rendering of Nothing to date. The band have never sounded this colossal, never felt this intimate, never been this honest.

With the strongest arsenal in Nothing’s ever-shifting lineup locked in -- guitarist Doyle Martin (Cloakroom), bassist Bobb Bruno (Best Coast), drummer Zachary Jones (MSC, Manslaughter 777), and third guitarist Cam Smith (Ladder To God, also of Cloakroom) -- singer-songwriter Domenic “Nicky” Palermo knew he had the manpower to make the band’s most ambitious record yet. Co-written and produced with Whirr guitarist Nicholas Bassett, and with additional production and mixing work from Sonny Diperri (DIIV, Julie), A Short History of Decay is the most evolved musical statement in Nothing’s catalog. Songs like “Cannibal World” and “Toothless Coal” are cataclysmic lashings of mechanized industrial-gaze that sound like My Bloody Valentine -- except more extreme.

On the other end of the spectrum, the ornately morose “Purple Strings” boasts a beautiful string arrangement that includes harpist -- and two-time Nothing contributor -- Mary Lattimore. That baroque delicacy permeates other A Short History of Decay highlights, particularly “The Rain Don’t Care,” a lilting ballad that channels the worn-down elegance of Mojave 3, and also “Nerve Scales,” a pattering bop that resembles Radiohead in its marriage of otherworldly atmosphere and mortal precision. Palermo calls the new record “a final chapter.” Not the end of Nothing, but the conclusion of a story that began with Nothing’s 2014 debut, Guilty of Everything -- another album about time, regret, and confronting uncomfortable truths -- and now resolves with A Short History of Decay. As much a snapshot of Palermo’s past as it is a leap into Nothing’s future.

Chance Peña

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