Never2Late Addresses The Real Issue on “Love Is Wise”
By Deuce
October 25, 2023, was a fairly momentous date for many people. For some, it just so happened to mark the wedding anniversary after their 50th anniversary. For others, it was the day their lives were reclaimed from the roving, probing eyes of what could very well have been the internet itself.
And for Never2Late, it was the day the band’s latest single, “Love Is Wise”, was released and hit the streets.
The tune is timely in a ton of ways. Anyone can take a listen to virtually any of the lyrics and hear apothegms. The title itself could very well hearken to the book of Proverbs (“Love is patient/love is kind”). But singer songwriter SteveB is being anything but equivocal by asking meaningful questions like “can’t we just agree to disagree before things get out of hand?” He’s also dropping lines like “we all have more in common than we have apart” on what may be the third verse of this five-plus-minutes opus.
And of course, the mentioning that “politics and religion have a lot to answer for” has overtones suggestive of the miasma of violence that’s currently overrunning the holy land. Disbelievers need only knowledge the artwork for the release, which has far too many tombstones, soldiers (some of whom bear an uncanny resemblance to Nazis) and perhaps an innocent victim or two, if further proof’s desired.
But the message of armistice, peace, and the triumph of love becomes all the more convincing in the sonic sound bed Never2Late has put together on the track. The drummer (who alas, appears to be uncredited) gets two thumbs up and a rousing handclap for the vivacity and deep pocket he puts into the snare over this mid-tempo affair. Granted, the hands behind the mixing boards and the engineer’s knobs certainly deserve a gang of credit for making it sound as big as it does.
There’s a similar effect produced on the electric bass, which is enormous on parts and serves as the steady reply to some of the vocalist’s more pressing lyrics. Plus, SteveB’s working things out on the electric guitar with a nasty little riff that holds the tune down all on its own before, and in the intermissions between high notes, he ever hits the mic.
It’s quite an admixture and as deserving of airplay as anything else in these tenuous times.
