LATTE+ – ‘Stitches’.
For our previous work on the band – Click Here.
One thing I came to find with LATTE+ is their incredulous emulation of the Ramones. They know, we know, every Tom, Dick and Punk Rocker knows its been done before. The band are well aware, well aware of how they sound and how their one part Ramones and one part 90’s Punk-Rock is what it is.
They love it and it is highly probable that you will too and to use the age old proverb, “if It ain’t broke, why fix it?”.
‘Chin up! Chest out!’ has an immensely satisfying chord progression with that classic Ramones croon and subdued vocals and a quite unexpected Surf/Garage Rock lead guitar tone that intertwines itself through your ear canal in complete confidence.
Any fans of the likes of Teenage Bottlerocket, The Queers or Screeching Weasel even two tracks in will find themselves smiling, especially at the comically cliched titled ‘Everybody Listens To The Ramones Even My Mom’.
With ‘Screw You’ you are treated to a Pop-Punk love song via slightly aged chords before you find what you (or I) are really after with a harder and far more driven sound in ‘Darkness Inside Your Heart’. It’s hardly anything overt or gratuitously aggressive but it does hint at a band that can sometimes at least, act a little more serious.
Track five is the very much classic silly-Punk humour where even a band of grown men feel the need to regress to a childish threat, while ‘Another Sleepless Night’ sits again closer to a more modern Pop-Punk sound with the band’s obvious experience and musicianship shining through the melodies. After all, complexity means nothing when whatever your craft is constructed and on point regardless.
LATTE+ are seemingly dispensing with their single shots, loading the group-head and firing off doppio into the heated ceramic of your ears. With ‘Hit Them’ and ‘I Can’t Figure Out What To Do’ a harder Punk-Rock fuel line is fed into a 90’s Pop-Punk tank for that extra mile.
The band are now more serious, albeit only slightly but then again, getting stitches is never pleasant. ‘Shit Talkers’ likens itself the heavier and latter day material of the band’s idles but also, again, gives the band so much more depth despite the very small change in direction.
‘Missiles’ is more of the same and easy listening while the all important eponymous track has a chorus so lovingly annoying that it is almost as immovable as the repetitive but admittedly satisfying caffeinated chord progression.
‘Liquid Glue’ is as strong as you’d expect a penultimate track to be from this record while closer, ‘When We Are Together’, is borne from desire to put absolutely anything and everything into a three-chord classic Punk-Rock song.
Stitches is not an album of groundbreaking stylistics and it isn’t from a band that is boasting the next big thing. It is however from a band that may well sit somewhat repetitively at times but also from a band that show but nothing but love and enjoyment for their craft.
LATTE+ are Punk-Rock band doing what they love very and you have to respect that.
Find the band below:
- Social Media/Updates: Facebook, Official Website.
- The bands music can be found from the following labels linked below.
- OUTLOUD! Records: Facebook, bandcamp.
- Professional Punkers: Facebook, Twitter, Official Website.
- Monster Zero: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Official Website.
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