Listen: Too Late - Thamus (UTR Premiere)

Auckland hardcore crew Too Late are just days away from lifting the lid off their long-awaited debut album, and in anticipation have given UTR the esteemed privilege of premiering their kickass single 'Thamus'. Take a listen to the track below, and while you're at it read a wee interview with bandmembers Mike, Josh and Steve who spoke to UTR contributor Fluffy about the self-titled record and how it all came together...

 
UTR: So it's been four years since your debut EP. Do fans think your forthcoming full length is... too late? Or do good things take time?

MIKE: Haha classic joke. Good things take time. We have been working on this album for almost three years now so it’s been a long process for us but a fun one nevertheless. Josh and I wrote about 20 songs that didn't even get past the demo stages that weren't in the direction we wanted to take it so we were pretty tough on our song writing. When Dylan started playing guitar and writing more everything fitted together. Dylan and Josh are both crazy good song writers and guitar players who complement each other so we took a massive step in the right direction when that happened. Super happy with the outcome. I think we're all stoked and pleasantly surprised.

JOSH: It’s definitely been a hard slog for three years - multiple line-up changes and other priorities have certainly put our emphasis on writing on the back burner. But once we solidified our line up in 2014, writing became second nature and it was clear musically what we wanted to achieve, and what we wanted to explore creatively. This album has been a true test to us as a band, so it's definitely a new beginning for us.

STEVE: Definitely too late. We got in the studio in March last year after a lot of demoing and have been lying about it’s release ever since. It’s out this week though so we’ll know what everyone thinks soon enough.



Tell us about the process, lyrical content and your general experience of recording this opus...

MIKE: We spent heaps of time in my bedroom demoing songs and writing. This let us play around with structures of songs more than what we would of in the practice room and once we were happy we took it to the practice room to finalise stuff and make sure they sounded good live. Most of the demos we recorded to start with sounded nothing like the final product. I think heaps of time was spent bashing buttons on garage band and Pro Tools. Recording was fun. Tom Anderson is the man and really helped us out along the way in the studio. The drum sound he got was rad and needed hardly anything done to it so without him this record wouldn’t sound anywhere near as good as it does.

JOSH: Writing and recording this album has taken the better half of two years to complete overall. It's been a mission, and we are all really excited to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Dylan, Josh and Mike really stepped it up this time with writing a bulk of the material. It's been great to see their influences come together to create this stuff - it's definitely a little different to our first EP, so it'll be exciting to see how people react to it.

STEVE: Lyrically there’s a strong sense of disenchantment with modernity, self-serving society, and impending consequences for humanity and our environment. Writing this record has really just been a couple big pushes, a lot of setbacks but without any concern of meeting deadlines and any external pressure we have just belted out a really great record we are proud of. Months down the track and we still think it’s a great record.

John Bart Van Der Wal of Aborted and Herder is on mixing and mastering duties. How'd you hook up with him?

STEVE: When Aborted toured NZ in 2014 I was the tour manager here and became friends with JB. From there we just worked out what would be the best method to get our recordings to him, recorded as such and got it done. He’s a great engineer with a really good ear for what we wanted.

JOSH: Aborted is an amazing band from Europe, and have been in the death metal scene forever. Anyone who listens to modern death metal will understand that production is as important as the songs themselves, even though we don't play death metal, we are fans of it and we knew we wanted to apply the same aesthetic to our production.

MIKE: We spent a few long nights on Skype between here, Melbourne and somewhere in Europe where JB was on tour talking shit and trying to get stuff organised. JB really made this record what it is. He nailed the guitar and bass tones and I reckon everything sounds really good. 

What's the buzz with Death's Grip Records in Brisbane?

JOSH: Death’s Grip Records are a growing DIY hardcore and metal label in Australia. Right now they have some great bands like Cursed Earth, Burning Season and our mates Bridge Burner. They really have a good roster of bands and we are so excited to be a part of that too. The offer to release it through Death's Grip was actually huge for us.

STEVE: Talks with Death's Grip were fairly quick, they have an insane roster of really tight bands in Australia, they liked the album so we decided that’s who we wanted to release with. They're easy to work with and focussed on putting out some great records. DGC.

Finally, what're the next steps for Too Late? A release tour? Sweet merch runs? Custom made watches and alarm clocks?

MIKE: We’ll definitely see where this takes us. We have plans for Australia and Asia tours hopefully on the horizon but I’m just excited to play some cool shows in NZ. I think we all just really enjoy playing shows as we don't play that often so when we do we all have a good time.

STEVE: We have some shows to announce, some merch to sell, some travelling to do.

Too Late's self-titled album is slated for release this Thursday 23rd June through Death's Grip Records.

You can catch Too Late this Saturday 25th June in Hamilton alongside Blind Threats and Resthills. Head over here for more information.

Photo by Dallas Houghton