Release date: March 1st
Record label: Self Aware/Dead Broke/Tor Johnson
Genre: Punk rock, 90s indie rock, fuzz rock, college rock
Formats: Vinyl, cassette, digital
There’s this whole cottage industry around the question of “why didn’t The Replacements make it big?” that’s sprung up over the years, with those both around them and affected by them pontificating on the various missteps that prevented the band from “breaking through”–to the point where we’re actively remixing and revamping their forty-year-old albums in 2024. While I’m sure Late Bloomer wouldn’t mind a bit of major-label money thrown their way, part of me is glad that this kind of music-nerd circus can’t reasonably be applied to modern indie rock bands, and I can just enjoy the Charlotte trio’s excellent, garishly outdated pop music without any strings attached. As far as I’m concerned, guitarist Neil Mauney, bassist Josh Robbins, and drummer Scott Wishart are trailblazers–as far back as 2013, they were melding 90s indie rock, punk, and pop hooks together on records being put out on Robbins’ own label, Self Aware. Fast forward a decade and 90s indie/punk revivalism is as big as ever, with groups like Liquid Mike and Taking Meds blowing up, and Self Aware has grown into an institution that’s put out great music from Amanda X, Faye, and Pretty Matty, among others.
Somewhere along the way, Late Bloomer faded a bit from the limelight. They never truly went away after their 2018 masterpiece Waiting, but we received Late Bloomer in smaller doses, and the most substantial of those, the three-song Where Are the Bones EP in 2022, was a complete departure for the group in its contemplative, acoustic folk rock. So it happens that Another One Again, the fourth Late Bloomer full-length album, is also their first in six years and first in their second decade of existence. Not that I expected them to go full indie folk on their next LP (last year’s “Barely a Sound” single proved that they do indeed still know how to rock), but it’s quite pleasing to hear Late Bloomer plug in their electric guitars and continue to tap into the sort of ragged-but-catchy Dinosaur Jr.-indebted indie rock they’ve done so well in the past (and it’s also pleasing to see familiar faces like Oceanator‘s Elise Okusami and Gold Dust‘s Stephen Pierce pop up–on vocals and dulcimer, respectively–this time around). At the same time, though, I wouldn’t expect the trio to be the same guys they were the better part of a decade ago, and Another One Again reflects the passing of time in a way that makes it distinct from the rest of the band’s discography.
There’s an enjoyable irony at the start of Another One Again, in which Mauney sings “I don’t have the self-control” as part of an opening track that deals in restraint and slow-building in a way that feels like a new avenue for Late Bloomer. Another new wrinkle apparent early on is the country twang that shows up in “Self-Control”, putting them in line with other southeastern US bands like Gnawing and Downhaul that aren’t “country” but still incorporate the sounds of their region into their indie rock. As impressive as “Self-Control” is, instant gratification Late Bloomer shows up right after in “Birthday” (the way that the band cycle through a jangly, triumphant college rock chord progression and choppy power chords in the first half minute of the song is a real “Wait, they’re allowed to do that?” moment). Another One Again is off to the races from then on out, eagerly exploring climes both familiar and new to the band, from the five-minute slow-burn “Mother Mary” to the rousing indie-punk shout-along chorus of “Behind Your Ear” to the emotional country rock of “Hope for Rain”.
“Video Days” kicks off the second half of Another One Again with another big chorus and verses about punk rock and skateboarding–but it’s in the past tense, sung from a perspective that’s long past youthful innocence, and that catchy refrain finds Mauney asking for forgiveness for what presumably fractured it. I still maintain that Waiting is perhaps the pinnacle of this kind of rock music–its most memorable chorus asked “If I make it to heaven, does it really matter?” and its closing message (“Life is weird”) is a pure shrug. It’s really hard to advance from that position while still holding it all together–if Another One Again isn’t exactly answering all the questions of the universe, it’s at least acknowledging that they aren’t just rhetorical things to ponder while stoned. “One day you’ll have to face yourself,” Robbins intones in penultimate track “No One Was There”–the question is no longer “if”, but “when”.
Rosy Overdrive 