“A meditation on intimacy, belonging, and the things that complicate them,” that’s how Cloudbelly describe their new full-length Throwing The Game, the western Massachusetts band taking the resolute and emotionally resonant style of indie rock established on predecessor i know i know i know and pushing in all directions. Lead single ‘Oh, Antarctica!‘ embodied the outward perspective of the release, Corey Laitman and co. “facing down challenges with a sense of determination,” as we wrote in a preview, “not least the dispiriting experience of mourning the future in a present world which seems to be tilting in a bad direction. As ever, the result unafraid of darkness yet always charged with energy, and as attuned to the personal moments as the wider global scene.”
But this outward focus is only part of the Cloudbelly’s remit. Throwing The Game just as concerned with the personal and the internal. ‘Poppa‘ follows ‘Oh, Antarctica!’ on the record and flips the direction of its perspective entirely to explore memories of a loved one and the ways in which dignity might be maintained through the trials of old age. The song focuses on Laitman’s grandfather, “a man,” as we wrote previously, “who lived for the wilderness yet ultimately found himself in a high-rise caring for his ailing wife.” As the press release puts it: “If there is a contradiction in the coexistence of tenderness and grief, this song doesn’t seek to resolve it. The contradiction itself is the emotional event.”
This willingness to consider the whole gamut of experience represents the real strength of the release. Cloudbelly manage to combine the social and personal, internal and external and even ideas of the past and future into a coherent, heartfelt whole. The resulting songs are often deceptively deep, tracks like ‘Phantom Lung‘ pushing beyond the conventions and expectations of the genre to do something more nuanced. “A love song but not in the traditional sense,” we wrote of the track, “detailing the slow disintegration of a friendship as it moved from closeness to distance,” where even the wistful fondness of the sound is juxtaposed against the more fatalistic ending. Elsewhere there are moments even more thematically inventive, such as single ‘Bend‘ and its meta-commentary on the plight of the artist. “The track a direct confrontation between an artist and their critical inner voice,” as we wrote, “but it’s one conducted not with fire and fury but a triumphant gentleness, as though understanding that any internal pain requires healing more than anything else.”
Therefore, though the (almost) title track ‘Throw The Game’ is something of a narrative outlier on the record, seeing Laitman switch the focus away themselves in order to inhabit the headspace of a past lover,it also serves as an encapsulation of the release’s ambitious spirit. A dispatch from the beginning of a fraught road trip where the sour atmosphere seems to forecast an encroaching end, the song is familiar story told from a novel perspective, possessing all the yearning and catharsis of the best indie rock but inherently more interesting for its willingness to attempt something new. “I don’t recognise you when you get like this,” Laitman sings in the opening lines, “sharp and defensive and passive aggressive / and I can’t find the thread of your love for me.” Like much of Throwing The Game, what follows is confessional in tone and affirming in its honesty, yet above granting the satisfaction of neat endings or easy epiphany. Watch the video filmed and directed by Nick Duncan below:
Throwing The Game will be released on the 13th November and you can pre-order it now from the Cloudbelly Bandcamp page.