Late Bloomer (Locksley Tapes)

Devours has been pumping out digital soundscapes for a few years, but the one-man electro-pop project of Jeff Cancade gets seriously focused on Late Bloomer. The full-length release follows a pair of EPs, and has the artist mining personal pain and some 30-plus years of pop music to great effect.

“Jaws of Angst” opens with a wildly sped-up string loop and the kind of bright, booming synth bursts you’d find on an Introspective–period Pet Shop Boys B-side. To elements of hard-thumped house pop and more, Cancade drips bitterness into his lyrics. “Was I easy to leave?” he questions coolly, before taking aim at an unknown figure for picking up a newer, younger lover who is “obedient and eager to please”.

Late Bloomer softens the bleakness with pop hooks, with the title cut weighing the pros and cons of dancing at the club all night or snagging front-row tickets to his “quarter-life crisis”.

But Cancade’s not entirely a pushover. The album closer, “Inferno”, a keyboard-oscillated digi-stomp, has him noting “I would rather die than give up on the dream.” Whether from a musical or a personal perspective, the album’s end-game pledge is one of Late Bloomer’s best discoveries.