While Cleveland’s Cloud Nothings are frequently grouped in with lo-fi noise-pop outfits like Wavves and Vivian Girls — well, by Allmusic at least, which is pretty much the best online music reference source there is — the frantically sunny, unabashedly earnest tracks from this year’s
Cloud Nothings reveal a different source of inspiration altogether: late-’90s emo pop. Tracks like “Understand at All” and “Even if It Worked Out” are as uptempo, urgent, sincere and imperfect as anything from the respective catalogs of The Anniversary and The Promise Ring. Whether or not that sounds like a good thing to you … well, that’s your call. Openers Crystal Antlers, on the other hand, are decidedly more psychedelic and explosive in their delivery — and probably at least a little bit more original.
— D. Patrick Rodgers