Nothing have always been rule-breakers. Shoegaze renegades

who’ve rebuilt the stereotypically lightweight genre in their ownbloodyknuckled American image. Outlaw poets spilling existentialdread on mile-wide canvasses of fuzz and reverb. Beginning asa Philly-born bedroom solo project in 2010, Nothing’s music hasalways captured the full scale of the human condition, both theblaring anger and the whispering sadness. a short history of decay,Nothing’s fifth solo album and first for Run For Cover Records, widens that aperture even further, providing the most hi-def renderingof Nothing to date. The band have never sounded this colossal,never felt this intimate, never been this honest.With the strongest arsenal in Nothing’s ever-shifting lineup lockedin – guitarist Doyle Martin (Cloakroom), bassist Bobb Bruno (BestCoast), drummer Zachary Jones (MSC, Manslaughter 777), andthird guitarist Cam Smith (Ladder To God, also of Cloakroom)– singer-songwriter Domenic “Nicky” Palermo knew he had themanpower to make the band’s most ambitious record yet. Co-written and produced with Whirr guitarist Nicholas Bassett, and withadditional production and mixing work from Sonny Diperri (DIIV, Julie), a short history of decay, is the most evolved musical statementin Nothing’s catalog. Songs like “Cannibal World” and “ToothlessCoal” are cataclysmic lashings of mechanized industrial-gaze thatsound like My Bloody Valentine – except more extreme.On the other end of the spectrum, the ornately morose “PurpleStrings” boasts a beautiful string arrangement that includes harpist– and two-time Nothing contributor – Mary Lattimore. That baroque delicacy permeates other a short history of decay, highlights,particularly “The Rain Don’t Care,” a lilting ballad that channels theworn-down elegance of Mojave 3, and also “Nerve Scales,” a pattering bop that resembles Radiohead in it’s marriage of otherworldlyatmosphere and mortal precision. Palermo calls the new record“a final chapter.” Not the end of Nothing, but the conclusion of astory that began with Nothing’s 2014 debut, Guilty of Everything– another album about time, regret, and confronting uncomfortabletruths – and now resolves with a short history of decay,. As much asnapshot of Palermo’s past as it is a leap into Nothing’s future.