Album Review: Dance on the Blacktop by Nothing

The hard-bitten Philly band keep on truckin' with their beloved blend of grunge, shoegaze and post-hardcore There's a reason fans are so passionate about Philadelphia's Nothing, whose third album, 'Dance On The Blacktop, sees them master their signature blend of shoegaze, grunge and post-hardcore. The lyrics are often nihilistic, but the music - which oscillates between buzzy, minor-key guitar riffs and pretty, delicate harmonies - is weirdly uplifting, appearing to rise above the hardship therein. And, Lord knows, frontman Dominic Palermo has known some hardship.

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Nothing's third album, like their first two, is wrapped around tragedy and hard luck. The shoegaze band led by Domenic Palermo debuted with the powerfully monolithic and dark Guilty of Everything, which dealt with his stay in prison and the guilt and pain it brought, then followed it with the lighter and less focused Tired of Tomorrow. That record was made in the aftermath of a brutal beating Palermo underwent after a concert and reflected some of the lightness he must have felt as he recovered.

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Domenic Palermo is a magnet for cruel fate. On his band Nothing's debut, Guilty of Everything, he longed for forgiveness after serving two years in prison for an assault charge, about which he maintains his innocence. 2016's follow-up, Tired of Tomorrow, brought more bad news; he sustained serious injuries from a violent robbery on tour. The dizzying and fuzz-soaked lullabies paralleled the extensive rehabilitation he required. Their third effort, Dance on the Blacktop, was created in the midst of another crisis; Palermo was diagnosed ….

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Dream pop and shoegaze, with their diffuse atmospheres and negative space, invite us to fill in the blanks with our own baggage. The Philadelphia band Nothing do a lot of that filling-in for us--these shoegazers do not look down; they stare you in the eye. It can feel suspect, imposing too much of Nothing's bleak history onto the blank canvas. But when the saga involves incarceration, pharmaceutical sadist Martin Shkreli, and permanent brain damage--as it does for Nothing frontman Domenic Palermo, who was jumped outside a show in Oakland in 2015 and barely survived--the narrative becomes knotted inextricably into the gentle music.

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Approaching third album 'Dance on the Blacktop' there's more mileage and scars to Nothing than most bands could handle. Frontman Domenic Palermo was attacked following a gig in 2015, leaving him with permanent brain damage - and more recently, a diagnosis of CTE (Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy) a neurodegenerative disease that often occurs in NFL players and other contact sports that sustain repetitive head injuries. That same year, they found themselves caught up in the furore created by pharma criminal Martin Shrekli, postponing the release of second album, 'Tired of Tomorrow' until May 2016.

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At the forefront of Pennsylvania state punk band's obsession with shoegaze, is Nothing. While other bands moved in that direction in later years, and some arguably better (Title Fight), Nothing have never seen this as a phase but rather their raison d'etre. Over the course of two excellent albums in 2014's Guilty of Everything and 2016's Tired of Tomorrow the Philadelphia quartet proved they weren't just latching on to a (sub)-cultural zeitgeist, but rather were the leaders of the pack in this, albeit trendy, movement.

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Nothing are a very intriguing band which I've respected a lot because of the artistic style of mixing and mashing genres. There's a lot worked in, from emo to shoegaze to grunge that gives the melodic, shimmery feel of say, Slowdive, and then the hard-edge of Title Fight. Guilty of Everything four years ago really impressed me but then Tired of Tomorrow felt like a slight step down the ladder (albeit it still rocked).

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