Cloud Nothings Announce New Album “What Kind Of Hell Did You Survive?” Out 01/29 - Share “Death Keeps Me Alive” - Upcoming Tour Dates

Cloud Nothings are back! The indie rock legends have returned today with the announcement of their strikingly heavy new album "What Kind of Hell Did You Survive?", arriving January 29th via Pure Noise Records.

For 17 years Cloud Nothings have earned their reputation as one of the most reliably phenomenal bands in guitar music. The band's prolific and impressive career has been full of captivating sonic twists and turns, but none have been as stark as Cloud Nothings latest chapter with "What Kind of Hell Did You Survive?". The ferocious nine song set is the group's most flat out aggressive work to date, a metal-influenced powder keg of blown-out riffs and mind-boggling drumming that still somehow manages to maintain Cloud Nothing's undeniable knack for melody and memorable hooks. It's a one of a kind release from a one of a kind band.

To mark the album's announcement, Cloud Nothings have shared "What Kind of Hell Did You Survive?"'s ripper first single "Death Keeps Me Alive" a pummeling cut of searing guitar work and throat-shredding vocals that sounds like nothing else the band have ever made. Vocalist/guitarist Dylan Baldi discussed the new song and the direction of "What Kind of Hell Did You Survive?" saying:

"Lyrically 'Death Keeps Me Alive' is from the point of view of a lurking evil power that never gets fully defeated in the world and feeds off of death, war and hate, which is kind of a fun generically 'metal' thing to sing about. I hope people hear this song and get excited for what the rest of the record could possibly sound like, and recognize that this is going to be a new version of Cloud Nothings that didn't really have a precedent prior to this recording."

"What Kind of Hell Did You Survive?" follows 2024's "Final Summer" which drew praise from the likes of Pitchfork, NPR, Stereogum, Rolling Stone, Paste, BrooklynVegan, Uproxx, FLOOD Magazine, and more, and proves exactly why Cloud Nothings are still such a vital force after nearly two decades of making music. Produced/engineered by Seth Manchester (Battles, Lightning Bolt, The Body) "What Kind of Hell Did You Survive?" is unabashedly heavy and metallic, drawing on a technical skill that's always been hinted at in Cloud Nothings work but now is on full display. "The album is our attempt to pay homage to the heavy rock music we've been listening to over the last few years," Baldi explains. "Some pretty direct and popular musical influences on the tracks are Queens of the Stone Age, Motorhead, Earth, and Electric Wizard. We were feeling a little pigeonholed in the indie rock world and wanted to make a change in our sound that revealed a different facet of our interests and abilities."

These are properly shredding songs full of galloping drums, breakdowns, and real palpable rage. "Lyrically I was inspired by a lot of more political metal and hardcore," says Baldi. "The songs deal with cruel governments, the importance of community, and occasionally a general rage at the state of the world." Cloud Nothings take on all of the frustration, absurdity, and dread of our current moment, wrapping that disillusionment in some of the most urgent music you'll hear this year.

Upcoming Shows:

• 11/07 Bristol, UK @ Simple Things Festival
• 11/08 Leeds, UK @ Lending Room
• 11/10 Manchester, UK @ YES
• 11/11 Glasgow, UK @ Core Festival Preshow @ Hug & Pint
• 11/12 Zaragoza, ES @ Feliz Feliz Festival
• 11/13 Vigo, ES @ Underfest Xacobeo
• 11/14 Oviedo, ES @ Gong
• 11/15 Nov Donostia, ES @ Dabadaba
• 11/17 Barcelona, ES @ Sala Upload
• 11/18 Madrid, ES @ Café Berlin
• 11/19 Valencia, ES @ 16 Toneladas
• 11/21 Lisbon, PT @ ZDB

LISTEN TO “DEATH KEEPS ME ALIVE” HERE

PRE ORDER “WHAT KIND OF HELL DID YOU SURVIVE?” HERE

What Kind of Hell Did You Survive? track list:

1. World Destroyer

2. You and I

3. That's Life

4. Terror Multiplies

5. Death Keeps Me Alive

6. Part of Something More

7. You Do The Killing Too

8. Die In Piece

9. This World Is Shit

Biography:

Like any great band, Cloud Nothings have never made the same record twice. Dropping in at any given point in their discography will return markedly different results, with every phase of their evolution held together by a distinctive group chemistry that serves as the connective tissue for all of their changes. Anyone who was already experiencing whiplash brought on by the band’s abrupt shift into the immaculate production and high-gloss power pop of 2024’s Final Summer will want to brace themselves for another seismic change with What Kind of Hell Did You Survive? Arriving more than 15 years into a creative evolution that has rarely taken a minute to catch its breath, Cloud Nothings’ tenth studio album sounds like nothing they’ve done before and is the closest they’ve come to making a full-on metal record.

The spark that ignited this change began when the band was on tour in Europe with drone metal legends Earth’s tour manager, which led them into a metal-listening rabbit hole. It began innocently with someone asking half-jokingly “Hey, remember Metallica?,” and after revisiting their canonized catalog on drives between shows, then getting deeper into more obscure metal subdivisions. The sub-genre of Funeral Doom was particularly fascinating, with key albums like Bell Witch’s single-track epic Mirror Reaper and Electric Wizard’s sludgy masterpiece Dopethrone blowing minds and opening new doors. Under this influence, Cloud Nothings got off tour and went directly into writing sessions of new, metal-informed material, ultimately creating a set of doom-charged songs that they took into their first sessions at the legendary Machines With Magnets studios. Working with engineer and co-producer Seth Manchester (who they’d wanted to collaborate with as far back as hearing his work on world-shifting albums from Lightning Bolt and Battles, among many others), they pushed the performances and sound design to places of aggression and chaos. Lyrically, every song explored a different kind of struggle, from the omnipresent global conflicts of an actively burning world to more personal hells, all of them grasping for ways out of the unfolding horrors. The band’s newfound exploration of metal expressions within the existing framework of their already explosive sound is a perfect complement for the lyrical bent of the album, and results in their most striking, most risk-taking material to date.

It would be easy to overstate how different What Kind of Hell Did You Survive? is from what came before it, but no, this is not the same Cloud Nothings we’ve always known and loved with extra distortion and a metallic scowl for effect. From the first doomy thumps that kick off opening track “World Destroyer,” there’s an undeniable integration of traditional metal into the band’s sound. The vocals are the most anguished they’ve ever been, the ever-frenentic drumming is even faster and more chaotic, and the songs are built on actual palm-muted, technical, heavy-as-possible guitar riffs. This can show up as the messy thrash of “Terror Multiples,” dissonant guitars, chunky breakdowns, and even a classic black metal finale in “Death Keeps Me Alive”, punk-metal nihilism (see in particular the glorious hatred of “This World Is Shit”), and sludgy undertones in even the relatively straightforward slower songs. Two of these, “You and I” and “That’s Life” are melodic and grim at the same time, with lurching grunge tempos and a shared plainspoken delivery that’s all the more harrowing for its clear articulation. The destruction that’s apparent in the moments of noise becomes even sharper when the band slows down and draws it into acute focus. It’s an intense ride at all speeds, closely replicating the power of the band’s live show; the fine-tuned machinery of a group who’s toured more than most for years on end translated into an unrelenting onslaught.

Even in this new extreme form, the album is grounded by the same constants that have defined every step of Cloud Nothings’ evolution. Direct songwriting that wastes no time in cutting straight to the thematic points as well as unshakable hooks. Lyrical drumming that’s almost counter-melodic, somehow flowing and precise at once. Locked-in collective playing that feels telekinetic, every instrument in lucid conversation even when screaming. What Kind of Hell Did You Survive? finds a different way into the center of these elemental components of the band’s sound, excavating dread, grief, anger, and disillusionment while ripping it up like never before.