EP Review: Real Friends - 'There's Nothing Worse Than Too Late'
Celebrating life and personal growth, alongside the inherent struggles people experience throughout their lifetime, Real Friends’ ‘There’s Nothing Worse Than Too Late’ is an emotionally vulnerable love letter to the experience of being human.
Illinois-based Real Friends are all set to release their newest EP ‘There’s Nothing Worse Than Too Late’ on the 24th of February. On the topic of their latest EP, the band explained that “’There’s Nothing Worse Than Too Late’ was written and recorded over the last year and a half. We went back to some of our earlier influences for it. When writing, we kept referencing timeless bands like The Starting Line, Taking Back Sunday, Jimmy Eat World and many others.”
Real Friends open their newest EP with the single ‘Tell Me You’re Sorry,’ the song is loaded with the feelings of anger and hurt we feel when someone wrongs us. ‘Tell Me You’re Sorry’ is full of longing for things to improve between yourself and the person who hurt you (or perhaps the person that you hurt) while also acknowledging that things may never change, especially if the apology is empty and it is only issued because it’s what one party thinks the other party wants to hear.
‘The Damage Is Done’ captures the frustration of being in a relationship that isn't healthy for us. It embraces the strength it takes to recognise that there’s something wrong, and that these things are often too damaging to a relationship (or even us personally) and that we can’t always fix what’s broken beyond repair. The track emphasises the inevitability of letting go of a person, to minimise the damage that we do to ourselves in the long run.
The track ‘Six Feet’ depicts the story of someone who’s longing to be important to someone else, especially when they’re experiencing something difficult in their life and feel like they have no one they can reach out to about it. ‘Six Feet’ captures the feelings we become uncomfortably familiar with during difficult times in our lives, along with the belief that people will only care about us when it is inevitably too late. ‘Six Feet’ is a track that is so emotionally raw and is completely honest in the ways that it captures the struggles that so many people find themselves going through throughout their lifetimes.
“It has always been important for us to write songs that are timeless, but that was in the front of our minds more than ever when compiling TNWTTL.” It's safe to say that the band have managed to accomplish this, ‘There’s Nothing Worse Than Too Late’ sounds like an album that you could listen to at any time in your life, and it would still be as relevant as the first time you listened to it. ‘There’s Nothing Worse Than Too Late’ is an EP about growth, and having room to grow even when you think you couldn’t possibly grow anymore as a human being.
Words by Bethany Ellis
