Cloakroom – Last Leg of the Human Table | Album Review

2022’s Dissolution Wave and its space-western setting had been written as a means of escapism at the time for the band, in order to help process grief according to the album’s Bandcamp description, and likely “the covid years” in general.

Last Leg of the Human Table on the contrary however, removes the protective lens of fiction and acknowledges the current troubling state of the world head-on, with the growing concern and uncertainty most of us are prone to share being echoed by the album title, setting the tone from the get-go.

Similarly to Dissolution Wave, Cloakroom keep things short and sweet with a very manageable thirty-seven minutes that breeze by as swiftly as Metis orbiting Jupiter, and waste no time in greeting the listener with thick walls of fuzzy, reverbed guitars as soon as opener ‘The Pilot’ kicks off.

From early on, it becomes apparent that Cloakroom is less focused on fully committing to a concept on this record, especially since the stylistic influences of Last Leg of the Human Table feel much more varied and spread-out, from ‘Ester Wind’s energetic post-hardcore flirtings with pop-punk and grungy undertones to ‘Bad Larry’s ballad-like country with a side of rockabilly swagger.

Of course, the band’s signature mix of sludgy heft and spacey, amorphous shoegaze is still very much at the core of their sound, but this trading of focused songwriting tied to a concept in favour of more stylistic versatility and diversity has a bit of a double-edged effect.

While each song on the album genuinely has something different and unique to offer, the album as an ensemble feels slightly scattered, and its overall lasting power is affected as a result compared to its predecessor.

But that is not to say it is as wobbly and uncertain as its metaphorical title, far from it.

This table’s four legs are firmly planted in solid ground, especially with tracks like ‘Unbelonging’, ‘Story of the Egg’ and the aforementioned ‘Bad Larry’ which sounds like something Elvis Presley or Roy Orbison could’ve sung on in an alternate reality.

‘Story of the Egg’ is particularly effective since it encapsulates Cloakroom‘s sound quite nicely, acting out as a contradiction within itself where the energetic, steadily driven rhythm section coexists with airy, spaced-out guitars and delicate, harmonized vocals to create an engaging and cohesive result. It also contains what is perhaps the most important and relevant lyric of the whole album, highlighting its overarching thematic : «How much more can the cosmos take?»

Despite the soothing, dreamy sounds of Last Leg of the Human Table, Cloakroom‘s outlook on our future on this floating rock comes across as even more pessimistic than what they previously presented in the aftermath of a fictional global catastrophe.

It’s not bleak nihilism either, but throughout the album, there is this idea of acknowledgement and Stoic acceptance of dire circumstances, given that these circumstances are also beyond individual control.

Penultimate track ‘Clover Looper’ (perhaps the album’s biggest stoner/space rock moment) offers a small glimmer of hope by rejecting the status quo, no matter the odds.

But this brief burst of optimism is immediately crushed by the fatalistic post-rock closer ‘Turbine Song’, concluding the album with what sounds like blissful annihilation.

Yet somehow, Cloakroom are able to make the end of all things sound peaceful, albeit bittersweet, as whatever remaining fragments of our world drift across the vacuum of space, lullabied into oblivion by the siren song of Saturn’s rings.

While it may not sound like the most cheerful time if you look too much into it, Last Leg of the Human Table tells a deceptively different story sonically speaking for the most part, with its comforting melting pot of alternative music influences, capable of making the worst of times seem bearable.