Best New Tracks - Pitchfork: Cloud Nothings: "I'm Not Part of Me"

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Cloud Nothings: "I'm Not Part of Me" Posted: 27 Jan 2014 11:05 AM PST There's an internal dissonance that exists within Dylan Baldi, and you can hear it in every Cloud Nothings album—hell, pretty much every Cloud Nothings song.  He always sounds strained in the way the best melodic, shoutalong punk songwriters need to be, his ambitions meeting resistance from any number of sources: the crude recording equipment of Turning On, his rudimentary skills as a drummer and bassist on the project's promising self-titled effort, and after Cloud Nothings expanded to a full band equally informed by In Utero and Youth of America, his reputation as a precocious pop-punk type. Attack on Memory was a fantastic, diverse record that handled these concerns on a case-by-case basis, but on "I'm Not Part of Me," the first single and closer on Here and Nowhere Else, Baldi wants it all, right now. Proving definitively that the ferocious drive of the full-band Cloud Nothings had way more to do with the addition of drummer Jayson Gerycz than that of Steve Albini, producer John Congleton's typically immaculate touch is nowhere to be found here—in fact, Cloud Nothings sound even more ugly and gnarled, Gerycz's Tré Cool-like fills fighting for space amongst murky, downtuned guitars. But even if it sounds like Cloud Nothings are heading back towards the primordial murk of Turning On, there's significant growth in Baldi's songwriting, as he strives for something beyond the simple but effective A-B, verse-chorus structure of songs like "Stay Useless" or "Forget You All The Time": a fantastic, steering wheel-punching chorus bolstered by about five hooks that an entire song could be built around. Each hook serves as proof of why "I'm Not Part of Me" might be Cloud Nothings' greatest achievement: Baldi's pretty good at making punk rock, excellent at making noisy pop, and pretty much unparalleled at doing both at the same time. Cloud Nothings: "I'm Not Part of Me" on SoundCloud.