Charlotte’s punk-rock band Late Bloomer have released their sophomore full-length album Things Change, recorded by Kris Hilbert of Legitimate Business and mastered by Carl Saff.
The band are known for their unique, one-of-a-kind sound. Creating music they want to create and only that. This record in particular mixes across different genres, which creates a combustion of feelings of isolation, and clarifying their image of the misunderstood.
The experimentation is ambitious, crafted through sounds of punk, hardcore, garage and grunge into 38 fluid minutes of energetic and thoughtful guitar-based indie rock.
The energy connects to the subject matter throughout, with tracks such as ‘Use Your Words’, kick-starts the album with overwhelming honesty. The raw sound allows for the truth to flow quite simply but powerfully. Sending a very important message to use your words, as they are all you have. Also containing a wonderful guitar, and drum solo, echoing the noise that we allow to take over our heads instead of out of our own mouths. Powerful stuff.
Similarly, tracks such as the title track ‘Things Change’, hold a real angst through it’s chorus, but work brilliantly well with the emotional strung out verses. The track is a perfect emblem to highlight the overall theme of the album; getting used to the changes in life.
In this sense, the band’s diversity in sound mirrors the alterations we encounter in our lives. Backed up by ‘Children’, that sinks you into a turmoil of a progressive rock beat, providing nostalgia for simplicity of the past; when times were clearer and less confusing.
Although there is not a complete lack of faith! ‘No Mistakes’, brings a catchy riff, with a contrasting offer of a slightly optimistic track. Despite these fuzzy complications of changes and questions, as always we must keep pushing, supported by the consistent drum beat.
Late Bloomer slow-burns confidently into shoegaze territory, proving that it’s just as comfortable exploring quieter, self-reflective passages as it is wrapping the disjointed squall of a sinewy guitar line around the propulsive and relentless rhythm section.
There’s no doubt that a definitive statement has been made with Things Change. The album seems to convey an essence of mystified uncertainty; feeling lost via the estranged range of sounds the band has infused together. In the case of the subject matter, the instrumentals go hand-in-hand with the sentiment. Achieving something for everyone, but a rare, one-off sound that is Late Bloomers’ own.
