“Being closer to the end is a strange feeling,” Palermo admits.
A Short History of Decay doesn’t just take risks lyrically, but musically, too. Nothing’s sound has always run the gamut from glistening piano ballads to scorching fuzz firebombs, but this nine-song opus includes the most achingly pretty and cataclysmically insane songs they’ve ever created. Palermo wrote and co-produced the record in close collaboration with Whirr guitarist Nicholas Bassett, a longtime songwriting partner whose expertise helped elevate A Short History of Decay to a tier of sonic grandeur that Nothing had never previously achieved.
“Nobody understands what I want to do better than Nick,” Palermo emphasises.
With additional production and mixing work from Sonny Diperri (DIIV, Julie) and every other Nothing member fine-tuning their parts, A Short History of Decay resulted in the most evolved musical statement in Nothing’s catalog. “Cannibal World” and “Toothless Coal” build upon the mechanised industrial-gaze of The Great Dismal standout “Say Less.” Clobbering breakbeats — constructed with Jones’ own drum loops — rattle like artillery fire, while miasms of distorted guitar howl into the ether like chainsaw symphonies. It’s the most My Bloody Valentine they’ve ever sounded, but in a way that still feels unequivocally Nothing.
On the other end of the spectrum, the ornately morose “Purple Strings” 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 the worn-down elegance of Mojave 3, and also “Nerve Scales,” a pattering bop that resembles Radiohead in its marriage of otherworldly atmosphere and mortal precision. “Never Come Never Morning” even contains a majestic brass section courtesy of Jesus Ricardo Ayub Chavira, an authentic Corridos musician who Nothing became acquainted with during a long night of partying at Sonic Ranch, the legendary Texas studio where Nothing recorded A Short History of Decay.
Located on a 1,700-acre pecan orchard just two hours from the Mexican border, Sonic Ranch provided a surreal backdrop for Nothing’s usual itinerary of heavy drinking and thrill-seeking antics. “We were drinking like it was the apocalypse every night — and all day I guess, pretty much,” Palermo says, laughing. Tony Rancich, the eccentric billionaire who owns the studio compound, was an enigmatic presence during the two-week recording process. Palermo says Rancich always had a personal book of spells on hand, and would jog around the studio premises with a 357 magnum strapped to his chest to fend off wild dogs. He allegedly holds the record for the most speeding tickets in Texas, and one night during their marathon bender, he took the Nothing boys on a death-defying 160mph cruise down a desert highway.
Clearly, despite all of Palermo’s reckonings with age and deterioration, Nothing’s rebellious spirit remains intact. Even though, in so many ways, from the personnel changeovers to their advanced sound, Nothing are a vastly different band than they were when they started, Palermo still feels that A Short History of Decay is an uncannily familiar reflection of Nothing’s briney 2014 debut.
“Between the point of clarity and this overwhelming sense of honesty within myself,” Palermo explains. “This feels like an exact full circle moment to that first record.”
He calls the new record “a final chapter.” Not the end of Nothing, but the conclusion of a story that began with Guilty of Everything — another album about time, regret, and confronting uncomfortable truths — and now resolves with A Short History of Decay. As much a snapshot of Palermo’s past as it is a leap into Nothing’s future.
