by Patrick Haynes (@expertfrowner)
On Dissolution Wave, Cloakroom shows that they know the assignment and end up delivering the best album of their career. With 2015’s debut Further Out, Cloakroom came onto the scene crafting a mix of slowcore, shoegaze, and doom, sounding at times like Pedro the Lion fronting Kowloon Walled City. On the follow-up, however, they moved into more space-rock and Hum-influenced territory, perhaps influenced by Hum front-man Matt Talbott producing 2017’s Time Well. Now, five years later and with new drummer Tim Remis joining vocalist/guitarist Doyle Martin and bassist Bobby Markos, the band seems ready to reel in some of the riff-driven songwriting of the previous record and hone in more on atmosphere and soundscapes accompanying more bare boned songwriting from Martin. While the heaviness of some of their prior material is still present - especially on opener “Lost Meaning,” which is the closest thing to a continuation of their previous records - most of the heaviness seems to stem from Martin’s wearied delivery as opposed to walls of sound from crushing Big Muff-driven chords.
In the years between Time Well and Dissolution Wave, Cloakroom has dusted off live covers of alt-country tracks, like Songs: Ohia’s seminal “Farewell Transmission,” and the influence of those performances appears to have rubbed off on some of the tracks on Dissolution Wave, most notably so on the ethereal title track, “A Force at Play,” and album-highlight “Lambspring.” These aren’t songs that would have necessarily fit on Time Well, but seem to be the kind of songs that the band has been working towards since forming in 2012. It’s as easy to see a song like “Lambspring” fitting on any of the Songs: Ohia albums as it is Slowdive’s Souvlaki, and the production of Dissolution Wave, which Cloakroom did themselves alongside engineer and long-time friend Zac Montez, benefits these new tracks greatly.
There is similar songwriting on Further Out, but the walls of fuzz on that album often hid some of the levity of those songs, and Time Well seemed focused on producing more out-of-the-box experimentation. There’s a clarity to the mix on Dissolution Wave that allows the heaviness of the guitars to still be present, while not stepping on the toes of Martin’s delivery, allowing your imagination to view these songs as they are, or as even more stripped-down Jason Molina-type tracks. While some might prefer the riff-driven nature of songs like Time Well’s “Seedless Star,” this new batch feels like the record Cloakroom has always wanted to make, and with any luck, could find them garnering favor with music fans not necessarily drawn to music traditionally in the slowcore or shoegaze mold.