Hi, you wanna know about us?By: Ernesto Aguilar
Album Type: Full Length
Date Released: 18/08/2017
The songwriting and arrangements are as distinctive and original as they come, especially for the subgenres Cloakroom claims. You will get treated to plenty that fits a stoner/sludge aesthetic that you are used to hearing. Yet, by the time you reach "The Sun Won't Let Us Go" midway through, chances are you will embrace where the band is heading with all this. But it is nevertheless magnificent.
"Time Well"CD//DD//LP track listing
1. Gone But Not Entirely
2. Big World
3. Concrete Gallery
4. Seedless Star
5. Sickle Moon Blues
6. Hymnal
7. The Sun Won't Let Us Go
8. Time Well
9. 52Hz Whale
10. The Passenger
The Review:
Some of the best music defies description and can be defiant in a manner that can be both sublime and utterly enraging. You think you can put a band in a convenient mental category, as we are wont to do, until its members aptly demonstrate you just cannot do so. This fluidity is loved by many music fans. It can also make others completely panic.
Enter Cloakroom. This outfit presents fleeting instances of doom and stoner rock. However, it offers the strongest pop sensibility of any group on which you would otherwise bestow those categories. On its sophomore release, "Time Well," the Northwest Indiana-based band creates an impressive though hard to describe recording.
"Further Out," Cloakroom'sdebut, received accolades for its quality as a heavier side of indie rock package. It was moody and sorrowful at moments, reflective and tense elsewhere. Truly a promising first outing by most standards, and loved by many critics and fans. You almost have to think so many eyes generates more than a little pressure on this young band to follow through on an equally rich offering.
Fortunately, "Time Well" is an admirable progression from what we heard in "Further Out." "Gone But Not Entirely," the new disc's first track, treats you to a sound you will grow to love across all ten cuts – that kickoff indie swag that summons the Replacements among others making way for thick guitars and a plodding bass. It is real ride at first, because you might expect this is all going one way – and who can blame you, considering metal label Relapse put this out – until your ears get a delightful sonic curveball. But it is nevertheless magnificent.
Other tracks abide by this indie/heavy model, which is nevertheless a great experience. Catch "Concrete Gallery"and "Sickle Moon Blues"among the best of such songs. The songwriting and arrangements are distinctive and original as they come, especially for the subgenres Cloakroomclaims. You will get treated to plenty that fits a stoner/sludge aesthetic that you are used to hearing. Yet, by the time you reach "The Sun Won't Let Us Go" midway through, chances are you will embrace where the band is heading with all this. Those mental categories we all seek will disappear for a bit in favor of such a superlative story arc.
Cloakroom succeeds as a one-of-a-kind sort of group. You have to admire its members' courage at stepping out of bounds, and for breaking the sophomore slump with a release you will not soon forget.
"Time Well" is available here
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