#final summer

This is Cloud Nothings’ eighth full-length, coming a decade and a half after its first lo-fi bangers. It’s certainly true that the band has navigated several cycles of the rock-is-dead-no-it-isn’t narrative during that period. When Baldi’s music first hit our inboxes, the big comparison was Wavves (he was better), now he swims in the same pool as Wednesday and Ratboys. Over time, his band has offered fuzz pop and noise in various proportions. Early efforts like Turning On and the S-Tfizzed with lo-fi melodic energy, while 2012’s Attack on Memory (recorded with the late, great Steve Albini) buzzed in darker, more dissonant aggression. More recently, Baldi has flirted with free jazz and improvisation, playing a wild sax alongside long-time drummer Jason Gerycz in the Baldi Gerycz Duo.

This journey, though, has led Baldi — alongside Gerycz and bassist Chris Brown — to a place not too far from where they began, where fuzz-crusted romance blares and blusters without obscuring its fetching, hooky charms. Final Summer nails that very Western Mass aesthetic (even though Baldi is from Cleveland).  Think Ovlov, California X, most of the Exploding in Sound roster and, of course, Dinosaur. These are headbangers with a shit-eating grin, and there are no loose threads, not one.

The title track, for instance, looms into view on tense staccato electric picking over a swelling wash of synth sound. It’s edgeless, tempo-less extending from a center rather than moving forward…until it isn’t. About a minute into the cut, a drum beat kicks in, a guitar riff circles, little space noise sparkle of synth drift in, and the chorus begins. It’s like Tangerine Dream transforming itself into Sugar, both parts pure pleasure, wildly different and somehow complementary.

Though Final Summer doesn’t rage as hard as Attack on Memory, in general, it’s got its bludgeoning intervals, most notably sludgy “I’d Get Along.”  “If something would happen, if something would happen with me, I’d get along,” caterwauls Baldi over a frenetic cacophony of drums and guitars. His voice frays as he projects over the mayhem. The singing goes hoarse and metal-voiced in the long finishes, as Gerycz explodes in frantic bursts. It’s loud and corroded but also kind of a bop. That’s a trick that Cloud Nothings have been pulling since the late aughts, but there’s no sign that they’re tired of it. Final Summer is as sharp and exuberant and fierce as anything this band has ever done.