Album Review : Cloakroom - Last Leg of the Human Table (2025)

One of the many reasons why I love going to shows is that it forces me to listen to new bands I would never check out on my own. Last November, I went to a Better Lovers and Full of Hell gig that somehow featured a Northwest Indiana shoegaze band called Cloakroom a they killed it. Not blackgaze, an all-out "swirling guitars" and blissful oblivion anachronic shoegaze band. I was instantly a fan. Cloakroom has a new record coming out called Last Leg of the Human Table and I'm here for it.

This new album features ten songs and around thirty-five minutes of music. It's powerful, bombastic and yet nimble and dreamlike. Cloakroom don't reinvent shoegaze at all, but the band has found a colour and a texture that makes their sound unmistakable. Last Leg of the Human Table is somewhat of a nostalgic trip back to the nineties where loud rock and melody could not only coexist, but was the soundtrack of youth culture. It made me feel like taking my long dead skateboard to school.

I'd be at loss to identify standout bangers on Last Leg of the Human Table as if offers such an overall cohesive soundscape. It’s one of these records made to listen to from cover to cover. Sometimes you walk, sometimes you run, something you stand pat, but you're always covered in that blissful guitar haze, like a cold, but pleasant late night mist. My personal favorites would be: Cloverlooper, Ester Wind and the single Bad Larry would be my choices as they exemplify Cloakroom's greatest strengths.

Cloakroom does the fast, overblown, soft punk shoegaze style well. Doyle Martin's voice and Cam Smith's guitar play off each other like dueling vocal melodies. Ester Wind has this girth that I appreciate so much about shoegaze music and this "breakdown" part (for lack of a better word) that feel heavier than dinosaur hooves. Cloverlooper is a little cleaner than Ester Wind, but has these obsessive, repeating riffs and this organic guitar texture that gives Cloakroom music its singular identity and power.

Bad Larry is a different trip. It's a slower, more melodic song with a peculiar marching drum performance that gives it a whimsical character. Martin’s graceful, nimble storytelling takes center stage in front of the minimalist, reverb-drenched guitars. It evokes such precise feelings. Every time it plays, I feel like I’m watching a Harmony Korine film that doesn't exist. Vocals often feel like an instrument on the more frantic cuts of Last Leg of the Human Table, but not on this song. Doyle Martin is the captain here.

The other single Story of the Egg is another song with shades of nineties skate punk driven by a precise drumming performance by Tim Remis that features gorgeous and atypical flickering guitars. It's such a unique song, it’s difficult to compare it to anything. Turbine Song is a lengthier, more abstract number which I also loved. It delves into post-rock territory with shades of Sigur Rós. This is definitely an intriguing direction the band should explore on further release because they're good at it.

The two instrumental interludes On Joy and Unbelieving and On Joy and Undeserving aside, the only other song I really liked on the record was the opener The Pilot, which features quite creative vocal melodies to powerful and caustic instrumentation. No major qualms about Unbelonging and The Lights Are On, two of the quieter numbers of Last Leg of the Human Table. They have their moments, but feel underdeveloped. There are interesting ideas on both, but they merely act as a bridge between better songs.

The Lights Are On is particularly frustrating in that regard because it's full of great riffs that taper off without building up to anything.

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Last Leg of the Human Table is a trip. It’s a shoegaze record in the utmost classic sense of the term, but it's full of little details and nuances that makes it a rich listening experience. You unfold new and intriguing quirks with every spin. I wouldn’t say there are standout songs like the unforgettable Lost Meaning from their 2022 release Dissolution Wave and it'll cost them a few ranking points in the end, but Last Leg of the Human Table is about mood. It's a sonic monolith and not just a collection of songs.

7.7/10

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