The latest
in a long line of hyped young things from New York
City, the Cloud Room are more akin to the National
than the Strokes – they’re going to fly under the
radar for the most part, exciting a scant few.
Single and opening track “Hey Now Now” is certainly
a brilliant beginning; in fact, if the Cloud Room
were capable of keeping that sort of momentum up
and going throughout the course of their self-titled
debut then they’d just about have a pop masterpiece
on their hands.
Instead, much of the Cloud Room
flits between strong rockers and plaintive poppers,
but it never truly
excels at anything – the sound is strong, but the
lack of punch to much of it – “Hey Now Now” and “Waterfall” notably
excepted – make it anything but a slice of the brilliance
the band may be capable of in the future.
So where do the Cloud Room fit?
Are they an indie rock band or one about to cross
over to major acceptance
by the general public? Based on their self-titled
debut album, it would seem the band themselves are
unsure. It straddles that awkward middle ground,
with songs like “Sunlight Song” coming across as
insular, but then “The Hunger is as open as anything
on the new Franz Ferdinand record. The Cloud Room
show tremendous promise on this release…now it’s
just a matter of bringing that promise fully across.