Last Fall, Dylan Baldi-- the young, bespectacled face and brains behind Cleveland power-pop outfit Cloud Nothings-- was gearing up for two simultaneous releases: a delicious new 7" single and a wide-release compilation that wrangled together nearly every other hook he had burned to cassette, vinyl, or CD-R in the year before. While both shared remarkably strong songwriting, said single was recorded without much of the fuzz and distortion that enveloped his work up until that point. The difference was huge. Baldi's home-recorded hooks had never been hard to hear, but out in the open, free of that lo-fi asterisk, they thrived. Breaks were crisp, turnarounds hit like boomerangs, and every sweet, tightly coiled melody could be savored in full. In the lead-up to this, his first full-length in wide-release, Baldi hinted that he'd continue to clarify his recordings. He stuck to his guns.
The result is another fantastic step forward, though not without some growing pains. In the transition from basement to studio, one component has yet to come into full focus: Baldi's voice. The gap between those sounds coming from his hands and those from his mouth is noticeable. The opening five-song blast, as exhilarating an assemblage of tracks as he's ever strung together, provides a useful chart of his comfort level now that his voice is completely uncovered. Within the insanely hummable, sometimes gummy verses of opener "Understand At All", you can hear Baldi's voice originate just at his throat, where the screams of "Not Important" hail. And while the latter motions toward the skittering Midwestern pop-punk of the Promise Ring and recently reunited Get Up Kids as much as Buzzcocks, its final gasp echoes (as though in tribute) that of Wavves' Nathan Williams, another former lo-fi kid who's made impressive use of the studio. "Should Have" opts however for the suburbs instead of the beach and the unabashed melodicism of Gin Blossoms over Nirvana, Baldi's voice moving even lower. Once "Forget You All the Time" arrives, he sounds as strong and confident behind the mic as he does unspooling all those gorgeous strands of guitar.
That quick trip downward from mouth to core doesn't speak directly to the quality of each song, but it does their overall delivery. When "Nothing's Wrong" and its torrent of sugars and stutters begins just seconds after, the shift in pitch and pace can be jarring. That feeling isn't unusual throughout. Cloud Nothings' pop has become deceptively dense-- there is literally (and paradoxically) so much hook to be found here from corner to corner that, unlike similarly, ostensibly simple records, multiple listens are required to appreciate the taste of all its herks and jerks. In the late sear of "Been Through", Baldi hits a lasting sweet spot. It's a song that moves swiftly and forcefully, the calm vocal at its center not just its equal, but also the sort you hear when you first wake up any number of mornings thereafter.
