Attack on Memory

Few bands manage to pull off the kind of hard left turn Cloud Nothings made between <i>Cloud Nothings</i> and <i>Attack on Memory</i>. Leaving behind the fizzy, sweetly frenetic sound of Dylan Baldi’s early recordings, <i>Memory</i> finds Baldi—now backed by a muscular band—plowing full speed into far darker territory, from the dirge-like “No Future/No Past” to the explosive “Wasted Days”, which winds up with Baldi howling, “I thought I would be more than this.” Even the album’s brightest moment, “Stay Useless”, has a serrated edge to it—the kind of balance between gravel and honey that Nirvana found circa <i>Nevermind</i>.