Nothing - a short history of decay

Five albums into a career that has moved from shoegaze brutalism to something harder to pin down, Nothing have arrived at a record that feels like a band mid-renovation: walls stripped back, new shapes emerging, but dust still settling in the corners. 'a short history of decay' is the Philadelphia band's most personal and most structurally ambitious work, even if it occasionally loses itself in the fog it generates so well.

'Never Come Never Morning' opens with Domenic Palermo addressing his abusive father, a subject that previous Nothing records circled but never confronted quite so directly. At three minutes and forty seconds, the song is one of the album's shortest, and Palermo's vocal carries a weight that the surrounding noise cannot quite conceal.

'Cannibal World' follows and immediately establishes itself as the record's centrepiece. Running four and a half minutes, the song builds on a rhythmic foundation that pulls shoegaze toward something more percussive and kinetic. Guitars churn and layer while the rhythm section pushes forward with an urgency the band have rarely permitted themselves. If Nothing's next record starts where 'Cannibal World' ends, the results could be extraordinary.

'The Rain Don't Care' unfolds slowly, its guitars cycling through repetitions that gather emotional force. 'Purple Strings' operates in a similar register, though its melody is more exposed, the openness laid bare. The title-track, 'A Short History of Decay' is dense and heavy, moving through several textural phases without ever quite resolving, and the effect is of a band testing what their sound can contain. Whether that irresolution reads as ambition or incompletion will likely depend on the listener's tolerance for shoegaze as process rather than product.

'Toothless Coal' and 'Ballad of the Traitor' form the album's back half alongside the excellent 'Nerve Scales', a track that contains some of the record's most carefully layered guitar work. It's a record that favours density over clarity, which suits the material, though it occasionally tips into muddiness.

The closing track, 'Essential Tremors' takes its title from Palermo's neurological condition, a detail that reframes the album's pervasive sense of unsteadiness as bodily and involuntary rather than merely aesthetic. Its placement at the record's end gives 'a short history of decay' a final movement that is genuinely affecting. A band whose previous work often felt defined by sheer volume here find power in something closer to vulnerability.

Across five records spanning twelve years, Nothing have consistently refused to repeat themselves, which is admirable. 'a short history of decay' is the sound of a band in constant transition by design: compelling, considered, and more than happy to play in the murk to find the diamonds hidden within.