Most of the records made & released during this pandemic lockdown have decidedly felt like quarantine albums, faster additions or even side-projects while everyone has been sidelined. Yet Nothing’s The Great Dismal, recorded in this dismal 2020, is a natural continuation and evolution of their sound that fits in perfectly with what they’ve done before & who they are becoming.
The post-hardcore epic fuzz that Nothing has been doing for a decade now is in fine form on The Great Dismal, from the slow burn open “A Fabricated Life” to the reaching ambition of closer “Ask the Rust” (the latter bringing to mind The Smashing Pumpkins atmosphere that you you’ve liked for more than a decade). The band still traffics in shoegaze effects, such as the higher “Catch a Fade” and moving “Just a Story”, but also has their more muscular underpinning drive (“Say Less” and “April Ha Ha”).
Who knows what will become of most art made during this strangest of times, whether it will be a lasting monument or just a discarded time capsule (Tiger King already feels like a generation ago…). The Great Dismal is another great Nothing record.
