It’s not lost on these pages that as this world began its downward years to come sometime in the 2010s, having a band like Nothing existing inside its void has become more necessary. Immersing yourself into a black hole of nihilism for the sake of your art comes with a price to your body and whatever one might consider a soul, though, and Domenic Palermo is really beginning to feel the side-affects of swallowing the black pill on top of other self-medicating habits that go along with being a non-stop touring musician in these industry-broke times. Be that as it may, the physical or creative rot isn’t something we’re hearing beyond the quivers of essential tremors within the band’s fifth and most creatively rich evolution in a studio album to date, a short history of decay.

As arguably the modern shoegaze movement’s most important band, the album solidifies Nothing’s stature as innovators to the sound, rethinking a cataclysm of bare naked human emotions beyond the scope of its trad blueprint. In intentionally sensory-inundated standouts “cannibal world”, its title track, and “toothless coal”, the Philly five-piece — here, in its latest solidified form of varying tangents from the scene via Cloakroom, Best Coast, Ladder to God, and Manslaughter 777 in guitarists Doyle Martin and Cam Smith, bassist Bobb Bruno, drummer Zachary Jones — get bolder beyond just the Madchester and trip-hop tropes being picked up on in today’s vibes, supercharging their pulsating currents and memory loops with constant friction that doesn’t demand speed in order to surround you entirely with its wall of sound.

Even when heard through a different vacuum, Nothing destroying decibel limits at the very least has a familiar reverberation to it. a short history of decay stops short of being just that entirely, however, with its opening acoustic driver “never come never morning”, the spaced out lullaby of “the rain don’t care”, and the Mary Lattimore-orchestrated “purple strings” being stark, ghostly renderings inspired by Aughts era Brit-pop. As for those aforementioned “essential tremors”, those carry through the album’s final quakes, akin to a tattered page of Teenage Fanclub worship in an American emo diary. As the static meets its dissolve, it’s an epiphanic ending to an album by a band who have been brought to the brink and are giving their everything in this moment, just for the inevitable collapse to take it all away.

Highlights: “cannibal world”, “a short history of decay”, “essential tremors”

Nothing’s a short history of decay is available now on Run for Cover Records.

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