Now, the cynic inside of me might take a look at this and dismiss it as little more than Relapse attempting to jump on the shoegaze bandwagon that continues to trundle forwards with ever increasing momentum. The combination of extreme metal bands doffing the cap to the shoegaze movement (Alcest and their ilk) with the heavyweights of the genre reasserting their position two decades further down the line (My Bloody Valentine’s comeback last year and Slowdive’s recent reformation being the two standout examples) underline what can only be described as a real resurgence in the genre.
It’s remarkable really. 7-8 years ago, shoegaze bands couldn’t buy a gig anywhere and yet here in 2014, it’s a genre that is so ‘on-trend’ it has firmly entrenched itself within a disparate spectrum of genres including good ‘ol heavy metal. Not that this is anything entirely new, to be honest – a cursory listen to some of the stuff coming of out of Scandinavia in the mid-late 90s (Fleurety’s debut EP, Ved Beunes Ende, Katatonia’s ‘Discouraged Ones’) highlighted a definite shoegaze influence but here in now, it’s stronger than ever.
And so to ‘Guilty Of Everything’ – name-checking Jesu, MBV and Slowdive, its credentials are firmly entrenched in the ‘staring at footwear’ camp with not even a sniff of metal present. I can’t help but feel a little cynical and when the opening strains of ‘Hymn to the Pillory’ waft into view on a trail of oh-so shimmery guitars and breathy vocals, the cynic circuits ramp into overdrive. However, just as I was steeling myself for 45 minutes of trite wispiness, Nothing switch things up a gear with a deluge of fuzzed-out guitar and thumping drums. My ennui disappears in a second – it is so refreshing to hear a shoegaze band who understand that not only did acts such as MBV deal in delicacy and atmosphere, they could also pile on the POWER when required.
Nothing harness this to great effect and this ‘wall of sound’ approach more or less continues throughout the album. Twinning this with some astute songwriting makes for a suitably satisfying listening experience. ‘Dig’ is a great song full-stop, its lilting central hook given real impact by the power in the band’s musical delivery. On ‘B&E’ meanwhile, the band crank their effects units into overdrive, the searing lead guitar tones describing a scree of reverberating melancholic ambience.
They do have a tendency to veer too close to ‘generic 90s indie’ on occasion unfortunately – a lady friend who has a (far) more solid grounding in mid-90s Britpop than myself remarked that ‘Bent Nail’ bears a remarkable similarity to feeble indie-punkers Ash and she’s right. The spectre of wishy-washy indie does loom at points during the equally up-tempo ‘Get Well’ as well but thankfully, such moments are in the minority on this record.
The highlight here is probably ‘Somersault’, a textured, layered piece that underlines completely that Nothing really know how to do this whole ‘shoegaze’ thing. The band slow things down with a despondently chiming verse that simply escalates as it moves towards its climax. It’s not just enough to crank up the depth on your reverb pedal and croon wistfully and the band seem to understand this by escalating dynamics tastefully as the track progresses. Quite what Relapse are doing putting out a record of this nature is up for debate but it’s impossible to argue that ‘Guilty of Everything’ is an sturdy foray into noisy yet affecting shoegaze.
(8/10 Frank Allain)
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