Cloud was until recently an untaken name in the rapidly diminishing set of choices for band and artists sixty years down the line of Rock and Roll. Now it's been taken. By a young New Yorker named Tyler Taormina, (sometimes joined by co-vocalist Marie Ebacher), who's just released his third and probably last album under the Cloud moniker Plays With Fire.
It all sounds rather like Galaxie 500. Coming to this conclusion is inevitable as you immerse yourself in the record but that's not a criticism by any means. I very much like Galaxie 500 and Plays With Fire is utterly faithful to their spectral qualities. The record is layered with melody and soft texture and comes on to the listener like the best kind of dream.
Other comparison points are also almost as automatic as the Galaxie 500 one. Velvet Underground, Spacemen 3. Low, Yo La Tengo, Mazzy Star, Red House Painters. You know, that lot! The bunch who always understood that it was sometimes more effective to whisper than to scream. That sometimes it's time to dim the lights and just listen.
You get the feeling that the heroine from Juno would probably love the record. It conforms utterly to the sensibilities of innocent but principled and knowing youth laid out in that film. But the fact that Plays With Fire is inescapably reminiscent of other glorious things doesn't for a moment diminish its own glory. And that of course is down to the quality of the songs. Because here is a set of songs as good as any you are likely to hear this year.
So listening to it at work yesterday made me happy. And not just because it was Friday afternoon ahead of a Bank Holiday weekend. But because Plays With Fire is really some achievement. One that I'll be coming back to again and again over the coming months. If it is the last album to be released under the Cloud banner then this is some way to go!
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