Nothing

Aggressive rockers going shoegaze has officially trumped punks going folk as the most common genre flip, with Philadelphia, PA's Nothing, featuring, among others, Dominic Palermo of hardcore crew Horror Show, being the latest example. While the mysterious group offered up a few tracks and a short EP via their bandcamp page, this five-song twelve-inch is their most substantial release to date, showing off multiple sides of their sound. Opener "The Dives (Lazarus in Ashes)" announces the group with pounding drums and swirling guitars before melting into the title track. While Nothing favour the thick, heavy, detuned guitar sounds of Jesu, Palermo's vocals are pure dream pop, floating over top of beautiful guitar squalls. "Mine is Clouds" is even dreamier, but it's the acoustic final track, "The Rights of Love and Death," that shows where Nothing might be able to break out of the increasingly crowded shoegazing pack. Nothing don't bring any new ideas to the genre, but they've got songwriting chops that other groups plying this trade lack. Let's hope for something big next time.

Read an interview with Nothing's Dominic Palermo here.