The Shadow I Remember

Since Attack on Memory, Cloud Nothings have more than proven themselves as a formidable rock band. However, there's always been something special about Dylan Baldi's pithy, poignant pop songs. While most of the group's albums featured at least one or two of these gems, The Shadow I Remember is the first to focus on this side of Baldi's music since Cloud Nothings moved out of his bedroom. Baldi and company also come full circle with the album's creation: they recorded it with Steve Albini at his Electrical Audio studio, where they made Attack. In their own way, The Shadow I Remember's compact, hooky outbursts are just as potent as the slow-burning epics on Cloud Nothings' other albums. They're so seasoned that they can shift from bouncy to crushing and back again in a blink on "The Spirit Of," or whip through a dramatic buildup, blistering choruses, and a radiant coda in 90 seconds on "It's Love." Cloud Nothings are as searching as ever on The Shadow I Remember, and Baldi continues to ask the essential questions that he's confronted bravely at every stage of his career. "Am I older now/Or just another age?," he wonders on "Oslo," although his yelp is evergreen; on "Am I Something," his existential angst is even deeper when he howls "Does anybody living out there really need me?" Though he doesn't find many answers, it's easy to get carried away by the way he and the rest of the band blaze through songs like "Sound of Alarm" and "The Room It Was." Paradoxically, scaling back the scope of the album's songs lets Cloud Nothings try some new things that show how much their music has grown. Ohmme's Macie Stewart sings backup on two of the album's finest and most wistful songs, "Nothing Without You" and "Open Rain," while the synth textures electronic composer Brett Naucke adds to "A Longer Moon" give the song an impressively cosmic sweep. By revisiting their past, Cloud Nothings find something new in it, as well as something timeless, and The Shadow I Remember is a full-throated, full-hearted triumph.