Lollapalooza is always a physical challenge. By Sunday morning of this year’s fest, after three days of sweat and dust and beer and dudes in ToonSquad jerseys, fatigue became a kind of body high, seeping its way into the vision and making everything—the bright and beautiful day, the sad cup of takeout coffee, the looming specter of the day to come—feel like an omen.
And then came Nothing. The Philadelphia quartet play a style of shoegaze that doesn’t concern itself so much with reverb and delay as it does with volume. Excesses of volume, sound so loud that it takes on a physical presence. Singers Dominic Palermo and Brandon Setta use that presence like a wall, constructing quiet, simple songs with delicate melodies behind it. It allows for a certain softness and vulnerability—a defeated rawness, we might call it—that felt right and perfect when the duo rolled into the Original Penguin store that Sunday morning to shoot their Original Tracks session.
Last week, Penguin premiered “The Dead are Dumb,” from this year’s excellent Tired of Tomorrow. Today, we’re pleased to bring you “The Rites of Love and Death,” the dewy closer from their 2012 12″ Downward Years to Come. Check it out below.
