Cloakroom – Last Leg of the Human Table
If shoegaze is defined most often by its wall of effects rather than its songwriting, Cloakroom are the exception that proves the rule. The density of their tone and thickness of their fuzz aren’t in question, but beneath those layers is a knack for melody and a soulfulness that’s just as potent if you were to strip everything back. I’m not sure how much demand or logical sense there would be for any shoegaze band to do an unplugged set, but Cloakroom are the rare band that could pull it off, a natural feat for a group who cites late singer/songwriter Jason Molina as one of their influences. Their songs feel as if they’re built from the ground up, able to reach cosmic heights because of the meticulous construction of their foundation. “I want to make the best product every time,” vocalist/guitarist Doyle Martin once told me. “That’s true if you’re making a bookshelf.”
The gauzy veil over Cloakroom’s melodies hasn’t dissipated, but the Midwestern trio continue to elevate what lies underneath it on their fourth album, Last Leg of the Human Table. Their most stylistically varied album, it dispenses with the notion that Cloakroom belong to anyone stylistic lane while imprinting their own unique stamp on even the most surprising of those styles. On standout “Ester Wind,” they turn the idea of grunge-gaze—a term that never quite fit this band to begin with—on its head. It’s the first Cloakroom song you could convincingly call power-pop, much closer to the first Fountains of Wayne record than I ever expected them to get, and for how much crunch it carries and how far into space its outro eventually floats, its hooks are pushed all the way to the front. Those earworms are crawling right on the surface.
The most convincing evidence of Cloakroom’s evolution toward a more versatile and vulnerable pop sound come via Last Leg‘s first two singles, “Unbelonging” and “Bad Larry.” The former is a bright and bittersweet slice of jangle pop that dry-shakes optimism with melancholy, beautifully infectious and powered by wanderlust (“Anywhere we are/I can find a way to a nowhere bar“). With “Bad Larry,” Cloakroom offer their most surprising aesthetic turn yet, a dreamy surf ballad with shades of Orbison and Everly, and a certain linguistic vintage in Martin’s lyric writing: “When you hear the mourning doves a-cooin’/Gotta keep the circus movin’.” Though ostensibly a simple song, a fictional sketch of a kind of mythic nomad in just a handful of chords, it reveals deeper hues of guitar haze and a romantic, world-weary wisdom. “I don’t know what they’re telling you,” Martin sings. “Little things aren’t easy to lose.”
At full throttle, Cloakroom can still harness a potent roar, as evident on the wrecking-ball crash of distortion in opener “The Pilot.” But it’s increasingly what’s beneath those vibrating domes of guitar effects that provides insight into Cloakroom’s most fertile areas of growth. The driving “The Story of the Egg” is post-punk that captures the effect of a road blurring by from a speeding car, all forward momentum, eerie riffs and Timothy Remis’ skittering rhythms. And “The Lights Are On” is the best moment of Cloakroom perfecting and finding new avenues of exploration within their signature aesthetic. Bobby Markos’ bassline is the muscular tether that holds together its heavy, explosive intro and stark verses, the song retaining its heaviness even as everything is stripped away.
Where Cloakroom’s last album Dissolution Wave explored a science fiction concept about the earth’s rotation being driven by music, Last Leg of the Human Table is more grounded in its perspective. A statement released with the album mentions a “teetering social structure” and how “America has lost its soul,” and so much of the album feels like an attempt at connection, at trying to regain something that’s been lost. Yet Last Leg of the Human Table is constantly moving, and Cloakroom always finding a new horizon to cross. If this is the end, or some kind of an end anyway, I can’t think of a better album to play in the tape deck while sitting on the hood of a car, watching it all fall apart.
Label: Closed Casket Activities
Year: 2025
Similar Albums:
Cloakroom : Last Leg of the Human Table
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