Too Late the Hero’s tour kicked off in an auspicious way that can only happen to bands from northern climes: their CD-release show March 2 at the Underground, in Bangor, was snowed out. So, as the five-piece new-radio-rock band left on a self-booked two-month trek to California and back, they didn’t even get a big hometown send-off.
On the list of disadvantages our local bands have versus major scenes in LA or Austin, don’t forget to add the weather-related.
On the advantages side, add the fact that producer Josh Wilbur, who has credits on albums as diverse as Lil’ Kim’s La Bella Mafia and Fuel’s Natural Selection, has a soft spot for the Pine Tree State. He turned the knobs for the mathematically heavy Nobis album from 2005, A Blurred Sense of the Divine, which won that year’s Bimpy, and he brought Too Late the Hero down to New York this winter to record their full-length debut, Is This Thing On?.
Too Late the Hero normally call sleepy Berwick home, but guitarist Tim Mueller said it was “nice not having the distractions of home. We had to really buckle down and get things done.” They recorded at studios in Queens and Manhattan, supplementing at Wilbur’s house, who called in friends to play parts TLTH didn’t have anyone to play.
It’s Wilbur’s work with underground heroes Atreyu and Haste the Day that’s most relevant here, helping craft the new sound of “alternative radio,” which might be best personified by Fall Out Boy (who even appears in Bill Simmons sports columns now). Too Late are what you might get by mixing Fall Out Boy with Nobis, and sprinkling in some Headstart. Oh, and some Duran Duran, maybe. It’s plenty heavy, with artfully used screamo elements and plenty of melodic hooks in surging and catchy choruses.
Plus, Josh Wilbur is Too Late vocalist Jared Wilbur’s brother, so there’s that.
Jared’s got the chops, though. He’s got a powerful and agile voice, and his delivery is crisp with quick lyrics that don’t always string themselves together the way you think they might. Too Late employ any number of variations on the gang-vocal backing, along with New Yorker Katie Finley’s guest turn on three tracks, even the Queens Choir on “The Big New England Fingah” (the band like long song titles; I’m inclined to agree). If you haven’t read the liner notes, the choir bring you right out of your seat with a thunderous “honesty” as Wilbur transitions into the chorus: “Maybe you can tell me how it feels to be a girl/Honesty is overrated.”
That tune features some of the best of the album’s consistently smart lyrics: “I’m sorry that your girlfriend’s a bitch/I ache from pulling punches/She was so well put together/Guess it’s going to be fun to rip her apart.” Then it finishes with a jazzy guitar leading into a contemplative and quieter bridge, and one final smack-you-in-the-mouth chorus. You do kind of get used to that verse-chorus-bridge-chorus song construction by the end of the disc, though, and one of my few suggestions for the album would be some more variation in song form. The shortest tune here is 3:06, the longest 4:17. I’d like to hear this band jam out a half-time distortion fest during a seven-minute number, or maybe drop in one of those 1:25 acoustic pretty tracks like the Killers put in the number two slot on Sam’s Town.
