Like wolves of the same pack separated at birth, outliers instinctually recognise one another. After twisting and turning through the underground on parallel trajectories, the separate paths of Full of Hell and Nothing collide on the collaborative LP, When No Birds Sang.
At this meeting point, Full of Hell - Dylan Walker [vocals], Spencer Hazard [guitar], Dave Bland [drums], and Sam DiGristine [bass] - and Nothing’s Domenic “Nicky” Palermo [vocals, guitar] and Doyle Martin [vocals, guitar] burst out of genre confines together with a sound that’s equally dangerous and dynamic.
“Both Full of Hell and Nothing deal with the same genre-phobia,” laughs Nicky. “We’ve been called any style you can think of, but we’re both simply intent on making soul crushers.” “We’re beyond limiting ourselves to a genre,” agrees Dylan. “There aren’t any rules, but there’s clearly an identity. No matter what Nothing does, I can tell it’s them. We’re meeting in the middle where it’s lush and beautiful, but also sad and ugly if you look closely at it. Out of mutual respect, we just decided to go for it.”
Nothing and Full of Hell initially crossed paths in the twenty-tens, sharing the bills of shows and festivals intermittently. Dylan and Nicky kept in touch over the years, and the collaboration naturally followed. Together, they built a new “wall of sound” in the middle out of Full of Hell’s abstract and harsh ambience and Nothing’s searing shoegaze tendencies—conjuring extreme peaks and valleys inspired by the likes of My Bloody Valentine and latter day Swans.
“We’ve never done anything like this,” Nicky goes on. “The contrast is huge as we’re putting two extremes together and making them work. We’re just bridging the gap.”
Ambitious in scope and concept, When No Birds Sang not only showcases the bands’ creative highs, but also some of humanity's woeful lows— and they introduce this body of work with “Spend The Grace.” An unnerving melody gives way to cathartic growls atop a sparse beat, and guitars buzz beneath gritty vocals only to spiral out into trudging distorted crescendo. “We put the song together as we went through this experience,” recalls Nicky. “The whole record built itself as it moved.”
