Nothing - Tired of Everything: unease and guitars in the 2010s

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

In the beginning there were Horror Show, a hardcore-punk outfit whose ranks included a very young Domenic "Nicky" Palermo. Years of hard graft, three EPs at the dawn of the new millennium, a posthumous retrospective album. In his spare time, an appearance with XO Skeletons, where he played alongside Sean Martin of Hatebreed. Just a couple of recordings were banked before Nicky ended up in prison for two years following a brawl that involved a stabbing (though Palermo always maintained it was self-defence). The time spent behind bars, and the years immediately after, gave him room to think through the path ahead, which from 2010 took on a very precise name: Nothing.

The new project's first official release was the self-produced EP Poshlost, later reissued by the small independent label Like Glue Records in a limited cassette run. Regarded by some as a rough, negligible demo (sold at shows of the time duplicated onto CD-R with a photocopied cover and tracklist), it in fact already contained all the sonic hallmarks that would come to define the band, which from the start operated on coordinates able to blend wave-inflected aromas with noisy surges. "Last Day In Bouville", for which a video was made, was the first song to carve out any real space for itself. The EP also featured an early version of "B&E" (which we'll meet again further on in a different guise) and "Phantom".

But that's only the beginning: one night at a venue in Philadelphia, in the middle of a party dedicated to the Smiths, Palermo meets Brandon Setta, another singer/guitarist. The chemistry is instant: by the next day Brandon is already in the band, ready to down gallons of beer, write great songs and turn heads among the local girls with his permanently sulky air.

Palermo and Setta, besides both having surnames of clear Italian origin, share similar musical tastes and a common artistic vision, which quickly results in the writing of the EPs Suns And Lovers and, above all, Downward Years To Come, through which an increasingly clear musical direction takes shape: a melodic shoegaze with strong epic overtones, enriched by lyrics with unmistakably dark shadings. Suns And Lovers, released in 2011 in a run of a few hundred copies by Big Love Records and recorded with a provisional line-up, contains, besides the title track, "Carnival" and an alternate version of "Last Day In Bouville".

Downward Years To Come is released a year later by the label A389, usually devoted to hardcore/metal productions. Indeed, from these grooves there emerges a forceful attempt to cross-pollinate shoegaze with hardcore itself, an element well present in the individual band members' backgrounds, which tends to lean more towards a punk attitude than towards dream-pop. The overall atmosphere is dreamy and melancholic, with the vocals often left in the background, buried under a blanket of drones and feedback: a deliberate aesthetic choice recalling the approach of My Bloody Valentine, well represented across the two and a half minutes of the opening "The Dives (Lazarus In Ashes)". The closeness to Ride, Slowdive and Swervedriver is confirmed by the title track, in which, digging beneath the layered wall of sound, a powerful melody can be made out, with a final one-minute coda that's a triumph of reverb and delay. The monumental "Mine Is Clouds" turns out to be the forerunner of their best songs to come, while the following "If Only" has the task of slowing the pace and guiding the listener towards the lunar epilogue of "The Rites Of Love And Death".

Downward Years To Come starts to spread wider awareness of the American outfit's potential (still partly unexpressed), potential they would very soon be able to pull out of the hat in songs capable of changing their destiny. Two years later a new version of this EP would be released with two extra tracks: acoustic versions of the already-released "Suns And Lovers" and "B&E".

Shoegaze epic

But here comes the decisive moment at last. The ideas sown across the first three EPs blossom fully on the magnificent debut full length: Guilty Of Everything. Released in March 2014 by Relapse Records (again a label traditionally geared toward metal/hardcore), and immediately hailed by critics worldwide, it's an album that stands not only as one of the finest examples of nu-shoegaze of the new millennium, but also manages the difficult feat of holding its own next to the genre's cornerstones, deserving a place alongside landmarks such as “Loveless” and “Just For A Day”. An iconic record from the cover image alone: a white flag waving against a bare background, as if signalling unconditional surrender, perhaps a message from Palermo, his own way of apologizing for his faults.

On Guilty Of Everything, the band's towering guitar wall of sound merges with deeply epic atmospheres, and the ever-present melancholic streak rides devastating riffs. At least two of the band's defining anthems are included here, the essential “Endlessly” and “B&E”, the latter finally in its definitive version, complete with an instrumental coda that rightfully ranks among the best shoegaze has ever produced. The sound is nearly always explosive (“Dig”, “Bent Nail”, “Get Well”), and even when a glimmer of calm seems to appear, the atmosphere remains permanently charged with tension. Everything is always on the verge of exploding, from the opening “Hymn To The Pillory” through to the closing title track. The dark aura hanging over these grooves reaches its peak with the dreamlike “Somersault”, another indispensable highlight among nine tracks that fly by like a freight train. The line-up, alongside the two singer/guitarists, also features Chris Betts on bass and Kyle Kimball on drums.

A tour immediately kicks off that will keep the band busy for months, well beyond their home country's borders. In April 2014 they headline the bill of shows organized by Brooklyn's Rough Trade for Record Store Day. In the autumn of that same year they land in Europe, with stops in Italy too, playing November 4 at Freak Out in Bologna, November 5 at the Quirinetta in Rome, and the following day at Ohibò in Milan. Meanwhile, a key change takes place on bass: Chris Betts is replaced by the very blond ex-Deafheaven member Nick Bassett, who is simultaneously active in Whirr, identified as “The LOUDEST band ever” in the thank-you notes of Guilty Of Everything's liner booklet.

Splits and side projects

During the European dates, fans could pick up at the merch table a Split EP made in collaboration with none other than Whirr, who often shared the stage with Nothing throughout the tour. The four included tracks move in constant balance between noise and melody, venturing into a personal brand of dream-pop that tends to shake off comparisons to the past (My Bloody Valentine, Ride and Slowdive chief among them) to become a reference point for the emerging shoegaze-noise scene. Whirr contribute “Ease” and “Lean”, two tracks far more crystalline than the sonic magma found on their recent Sway, where drones and heavily effected guitars tended to bury everything. “Chloroform” (with an intro worthy of Smashing Pumpkins' “Siamese Dream”) and “July The Fourth” (leaning slightly more toward Nirvana) are instead Nothing's excellent contributions, confirming the band's fine form.

The band seizes this hyper-prolific moment to commit to new joint ventures, among which the Death Of Lovers project stands out as particularly intriguing. At the core of the line-up remains Domenic Palermo, joined by bassist Nick Bassett, drummer Kyle Kimball and the striking keyboardist Cecilia Liu, who bears a vague resemblance to early Smashing Pumpkins' D'Arcy. Behind the scenes, Brandon Setta also lends a hand: he doesn't appear in the official music videos, but is credited in the line-up and regularly performs live with the group. It's essentially a kind of Nothing 2.0, though the sound leans decidedly more toward direct dark-wave influences, drawing on the imagery of The Cure, Joy Division (openly evoked on opener “Cold Heaven”), Bauhaus and Sisters Of Mercy.

Buried Under A World Of Roses, released in 2014 on Deathwish Inc. (the same label that years earlier handled the Horror Show productions), is a debut that feels like anything but an off-the-cuff exercise. The four tracks are tight and well defined, steeped in leaden, depressive and markedly gothic sounds, through which Death Of Lovers (a name Baudelairean to the bone) prove they've memorized every single note of “Pornography” (“Shaken” plays almost like a dissertation on Robert Smith's most tormented period, but the title track doesn't pull any punches either, and is arguably the best cut of the bunch), reviving certain decadent sonic landscapes in a modernist key.

Meanwhile, Nothing are at work writing the songs that will make up their second album, though progress doesn't come easily. Palermo is assaulted one night after a show, and is forced into a long hospital stay. As if that weren't enough, he also has to cope with the death of his father. These rather unfortunate events will permeate the lyrics of the new record, released on May 13, 2016, followed by a lengthy US tour that will keep the band busy for the entire following summer.

How to aim for the “mainstream” while staying “alternative”

Tired Of Tomorrow, once again branded by Relapse Records, massively broadens Nothing's sonic spectrum. A series of aesthetic choices become immediately apparent: dropping the hardcore component, pushing the vocals to the front, and no longer relying solely on towering walls of sound hurled straight at the listener's face, but also on fine, crafted detail — this time yielding three (unexpected but delightful) electroacoustic ballads, and even a closing track built around piano and strings. Tired Of Tomorrow is conceptually split into three distinct sections, the first of which houses the most electrically epic episodes, directly traceable to the shoegaze-noise imagery laid out on the debut: “Fever Queen”, “The Dead Are Dumb” and “ACE” (an acronym for “Obsessive Compulsive Disorder”) represent the ideal blend of layered electric textures and melodic architecture, where apparent harshness, feedback and maxed-out volumes go hand in hand with swirling currents of intense melancholy and decadent romanticism. The sequence of the first four majestic tracks also includes the perfect hit “Vertigo Flower”, a burst of energy that would make today's Dave Grohl green with envy.

The slow-burning “Nineteen Ninety Heaven” serves as the ideal closer for Side A, opening the door to the record's second half, centered on less dreamy and more granite-hard fuzzy sounds, where the desire emerges to pay tribute, with both reverence and personality, to the icons of 90s alternative rock (Smashing Pumpkins of the “Gish”/“Siamese Dream” era surface clearly on “Curse Of The Sun”) and the unforgettable heroes of the grunge era (Nirvana invoked on “Eaten By Worms”). The album's third section, the one offering the most novelty compared to the past, indulges Nothing's more atmospheric side, with the energy settling and imploding, stretching out over the sweet, aching notes of “Everyone Is Happy” and “Our Plague”, followed by the piano-led title track, which closes out a near-perfect record.

A greater command of sonic dynamics thus seems to have been achieved, at least in the studio — the one weak spot for Nothing, who during live shows produce a magma so dense with volume and effects that it tends to blur the clarity of the beautiful melodies crafted by Palermo and Setta. Nothing's talent and songwriting skill are elements capable of propelling the American band well beyond the confines of their niche, turning them from standard-bearers of the new shoegaze-noise scene into leading figures of the entire contemporary alt-rock underground.

It's a slow but steady evolution for Nothing, who take on the challenge of pushing indie into the mainstream. It's always a very tough thing to pull off, but the band is here to prove that you can aspire to become a mass phenomenon without necessarily resorting to some fake, calculated brand of radio rock: a third way is possible, genuine and sincere, to bring contemporary malaise and electric guitars to center stage. Just as Kurt Cobain taught us.

Line-up changes don't alter the band's aesthetic

But Domenic Palermo's troubles aren't over: he's diagnosed with a neurodegenerative disease, caught still in its early stages, CTE (Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy). Once again, the singer draws from his own misfortunes to write the new nihilistic lyrics that will make up Dance On The Blacktop, released August 24, 2018. Nothing's third album moves along two distinct lines. On one hand, the desire to keep walking the shoegaze and post-grunge paths already well trodden on the two previous records, and on this front the Philadelphia quartet would have little to add to what they'd already excellently produced. On the other hand, the band works to make their compositions more accessible, smoothing out nearly all the rough edges while remaining unmistakably themselves. The album marks the arrival of new Black bassist Aaron Heard and the return of John Agnello behind the mixing desk. The cascade of hyper-distorted guitars on “Zero Day”, where the Smashing Pumpkins' influence runs deep, immediately sets the record's overall mood, but the album's peak is found in the shoegaze ecstasy of “Blue Line Baby” and “(Hope) Is Just Another Word With A Hole In It”, both boasting guitar intros striking enough to stop you in your tracks. There's no shortage of delights for anyone who feels orphaned by the 90s, but compared to the past, this time Nothing lean more decisively into melodic hooks, always well supported by truckloads of effects triggered by Palermo and Brandon Setta, co-writers of every track.

With the hardcore elements of their early days now erased, what remains are brilliantly radio-friendly tracks ("You Wind Me Up" is the hit that Dinosaur Jr. are still trying to write) and melancholically "pop" ones ("Hail On Palace Pier" is the linchpin of a particularly friendly middle section). Dance On The Blacktop thus earns the title of the most "easy" album Nothing have produced so far, even though the alt-rock on display here is still sandpapered by walls of Marshall amps. Certain recurring phrases ("Everything's grey", repeated throughout "Us/We/Are") take us back to those grey afternoons that made Seattle a trademark ("I Hate The Flowers" also roughly haunts that territory), and the only real pause from all the din comes with the nocturnal atmosphere of the penultimate track, "The Carpenter's Song", dedicated to Domenic's father, who drowned after a bicycle accident (it seems he had serious drug addiction problems).

In 2019 the artistic partnership between Domenic Palermo and Brandon Setta breaks apart, but Nothing's songwriting is not affected in the slightest, thanks to the coaching work carried out by Palermo (whose own vocals, incidentally, have also improved), which allowed both bassist Aaron Heard and new guitarist Doyle Martin, former leader of Cloakroom, to be smoothly integrated into the band. The new line-up records The Great Dismal (released at the end of October 2020, in the midst of the second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic), which keeps the aesthetic of the previous albums while avoiding smoothing out the edges too much, as happened on the two before it, and promoting a welcome return to the rawer overall sound of their early records. The stylistic mix offered by the quartet is by now thoroughly road-tested: it's rooted in the moving shoegaze guitars inspired by Slowdive, both in the dreamlike "A Fabricated Life", completely devoid of drums, and in the "harder" (it's no coincidence they record for Relapse) "In Blueberry Memories". These are sounds that welcome the influence of My Bloody Valentine, in the hyper-effected layers of "Say Less" and "April Ha Ha", and of Smashing Pumpkins in the granite-hard post-grunge of the mighty "Famine Asylum".

There's also a great deal of Deftones in the "Blue Mecca" / "Just A Story" sequence; "Catch A Fade" turns its gaze to The Cure's ability to blend gothic leanings with "pop" instincts, while the distorted chords in the final minute of the closing "Ask The Rust" pay homage to the noise breakdowns produced by Ride back in the days of "Dreams Burn Down". The Great Dismal is an imperious sound, overflowing with pathos, strongly inspired by Nineties sonics, but with that existentialist songwriting (the perpetual fear of falling, of sinking, is another point it shares with Slowdive's poetics) that finds its humus in Coronavirus isolation. A handful of songs that - unknowingly - fit perfectly with the times we're living through.

In December 2023 Nothing release When No Birds Sang, an album shared with grindcore outfit Full Of Hell, conceived as the fruit of an unprecedented, expanded collective, writing and developing together the material contained in the six tracks included. The mood set by the opening "Rose Tinted", eight brutal minutes of tangled riffs and horrific screamo vocals, uncompromisingly stamps the record with a clear metal direction. Only to abruptly correct course on the following track, with the slowcore prayer "World Like Stars In The Firmament", ready to veer toward dreamlike atmospheres, setting up an up-and-down ride that will continue for the entire length of the album.

Pooling their respective songwriting approaches gives rise to the menacing post-nuclear ambient of "Forever Well", ready to explode in its second half like a napalm storm. A momentary calm returns with the ethereal instrumental "Wild Wood", a passage toward a final section marked by a comforting title track sung by Domenic Palermo and by the detonation fixed in the fierce "Spend The Grace", where the microphone passes into the hands of Dylan Walker, for a vocal interplay that proves to be one of the project's great added values.

At times "When No Birds Sang" gives off the typical sensation of falling into a precipice; the next moment, the songs instead convey a sense of ascension. Ferocity and fading dissolve into each other, dissonance and delicacy coexist naturally, in a work that is claustrophobic and sinister yet at the same time fragile and liberating, for a final result that might appeal to anyone who adored the gothic wall of sound of "Sunbather" by Deafheaven.

In 2023 Nothing also announced they were behind a festival called Slide Away, dedicated to shoegaze, dream-pop and ambient sounds, to be held on March 9th in Philadelphia, on home turf, and on March 30th in Los Angeles, shaping up as a celebration of the sound the American band has always championed, to the point of being recognized as one of the foremost reference points of the new millennium's nu-gaze scene.

Six years after their last fully self-produced record, in late February 2026 Nothing return with A Shot History Of Decay, a short history of Palermo's physical and emotional decay, the autobiographical account of a controlled demolition, co-produced with trusted collaborator Nick Bassett and played with Doyle Martin and Cam Smith of Cloakroom, plus Bobb Bruno on bass and Zachary Jones on drums. The album's backbone is made up of its most violent tracks: "A Short History Of Decay", which once again ploughs the My Bloody Valentine aesthetic, with insurmountable walls of ultra-effected guitars and the vocals kept pushed back in the final mix; "Toothless Coal", riding the same nineties oriented rails; and the surprising "Cannibal World", which taps into unprecedented contaminations, grafting Nothing's traditional sound onto an unexpected jungle rhythm. Around this solid framework, Nothing array a constellation of slower, more enveloping songs, some marked by acoustic touches, "cleaner" songs in which the sounds become crystalline and the words stand out clearly. Because this time Palermo is tackling themes he wants to share in an understandable way. In the past he has already built entire albums around his own misadventures, from a prison stint to involvement in a brawl, to the diagnosis of a neurodegenerative disease, singing with that detached, almost anaesthetized timbre, while beneath him the world always seems on the verge of imploding.

Palermo suffers from a form of uncontrollable tremor, a disorder similar to Parkinson's disease, which could in the future compromise both his movements and his voice. It's no coincidence that the closing track is titled "Essential Tremors", a sumptuous crescendo composed by drawing inspiration from the best moments of a certain less abrasive strand of grunge, with a triumphant ending worthy of Nothing at their best. I mentioned the "cleaner" songs: the soft "The Rain Don't Care", which showcases songwriting pleasantly influenced by a certain strand of "Americana"; the melancholic "Ballet Of The Traitor"; the rounded arpeggios of "Nerve Scales"; the super melodic "Never Come Never Morning", which opens the record narrating childhood memories that aren't always pleasant; and above all the poignant "Purple Strings", a decoding of Radiohead's coordinates complete with string arrangement and a contribution on harp from Mary Lattimore. The result is a map of present pain and fear of the future, a manifesto on the approach of the end. A Short History Of Decay lays the groundwork for a successful new beginning, once again turning noise into a form of aching poetry and melody into a resigned acceptance of the void.

If many historic names from the shoegaze scene have made a comeback in recent years, credit is also due to the pull generated by young bands like Nothing, who have reached a level of authority such that they have helped turn the spotlight back on a genre that seemed inexorably destined for oblivion. There's nothing new in Nothing's albums, but they have nothing to envy in the "classics". They've learned the lesson of Slowdive and Nirvana (the shoegaze side and the grunge side) by heart, they've digested it, metabolized it, made it their own and spat it back out at the world, becoming among the best at recreating those atmospheres so many have adored.

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