“The bass frequencies and thundering drums of “And Then I Dove” are meant to vibrate through the chest, while the DC band’s heavy melodies are tastefully driven through what’s surely a spaceship-console-worthy rack of effects pedals. You should probably just get a pair of decent headphones already and feel this damn song.” – NPR
(via NPR Music)
Collect Records, the independent label founded by Geoff Rickly (Thursday/No Devotion/United Nations), and Washington DC’s Black Clouds have released another song from the band’s forthcoming full-length album titled Dreamcation. Premiering over at NPR Music, “And Then I Dove” is another showcase of the band’s mammoth soundscapes and can be streamed HERE. Produced by the acclaimed J. Robbins and mixed & mastered by Chris Common (Isis, Mars Volta, Pelican), Dreamcation is the stunning and cinematic follow-up to the post-rock and metal experimentalists’ debut LP, Everything Is Not Going To Be OK, and will be released on Tuesday,November 4. Having recently completed a US tour with United Nations and Frameworks, Black Clouds will be making an appearance at
Glasslands in
Brookyn, NY on
Tuesday, October 28 with labelmates
No Devotion,
Ricky Eat Acid and
Creepoid. Additionally, the band will be performing a hometown record release show at the
Black Cat in
Washington DC on
Friday, November 21. Preorder for
Dreamcation and information on tickets for the upcoming shows can be found on Collect Records’ official homepage,
http://www.collectrecords.org.
The final minutes of Black Clouds’ debut album did not have a happy ending: In a spoken word coda, Clutch‘s Neil Fallon repeatedly informs the listener that “everything is not going to be OK,” and despite the fact this had already been well communicated by the album itself, this was the first time that language had been used to articulate its quasi-nihilism. For this Washington DC-based trio, it was a rare but vivid show-me-and-tell-me moment.
Which is to say that Dreamcation, Black Clouds’ sophomore effort and Collect Records debut, is a significantly different kind of record. That sense of doom, once mined for its power, is more effectively harnessed for a nuanced energy- the darkness curbed just enough to let the light in-and the result is alternately aggressive and ambient, often in the same song, and sometimes in the same part: “Carcosa,” for one, takes equal cues from funeral and ascension, and “Some Of Us Are Meant To Disappear” somehow pummels you into a warm hug. A smart and measured progression, Black Clouds finds itself at their most introspective on Dreamcation, and if this album’s finalé eschews language altogether for a wash of subtle chords and a blissfully ecstatic drone, it’s only because-perhaps-everything is going to be OK after all.
Black Clouds will be making the following appearances in October and November. Dates below.
OCTOBER
28 – Brooklyn, NY – Glasslands – (w/ No Devotion, Ricky Eat Acid, Creepoid)
NOVEMBER
21 – Washington DC – Black Cat (Dreamcation Record Release Show)
Dreamcation track-listing
01. We Begged For The Floods
02. Don’t Look For Me
03. Carcosa
05. Accept The Mystery
07. Mt. Rainier
08. Low Places
09. Everyone’s Waiting
10. Perennial
