Rob’s Album Of The Week: Cloud Nothings’ The Black Hole Understands

For the past few months, COVID-19 put a ton of things on hold. While we were all being cooped up at home, the live music industry was reduced to livestreaming and performances in front of a handful of socially distanced people. That part of our society is slowly coming back in certain parts of the world, but one constant in all of this has been new music being put out by various musicians and bands. This brings us to Cleveland alternative rock act Cloud Nothings and their sixth album, The Black Hole Understands, they self-released on July 3. There’s a bit of a pop vibe within the record and the guitars sound cleaner than usual, but it seems appropriate for what they’re trying to accomplish.

The making of the album basically came out of necessity. Back in March, things were starting to get shut down which meant that touring wasn’t going to be a possibility for a while. With that happening, guitarist & vocalist Dylan Baldi, drummer Jayson Gerycz, bassist TJ Duke and guitarist Chris Brown got to work on new recordings. It was all done via file sharing with Baldi’s vocals being tracked in Philadelphia and Gerycz’s drums being tracked in Cleveland with the mixing also being done in the latter city. The result is a solid record that highlights Baldi’s songwriting talents along with serving as an example of how music can be made with…