Local Natives Find Their Way Back Together With Fifth LP & Standout Track, “Just Before The Morning”

Local Natives are as nebulous as it gets, shifting shapes and forms, with every part of the sunny SoCal quintet working together in unison – composing songs together, democratically winding their way through ideas and lyrics and tracks. It’s an uncanny approach that lends itself to harmonious results, but the band’s fifth LP ‘Time Will Wait For No One’ sprang from an even more unlikely metamorphosis – that of an uncertain future. And yet, they found their way back to one another through music.

follow our Today’s Song(s) playlist

“Just Before the Morning” – Local Natives

The COVID-19 pandemic wreaked havoc on many a band, forcing groups off the road and forcing them to take a long look inward. Local Natives were certainly no exception, even with 15 years as a group, not to mention a prior stint (for most of the band) as Cavil at Rest.

History, as it turns out, tends to add up.

That long look inward revealed some fraught tensions, as each member was left to navigate the world apart from the group itself. As Local Natives revealed on Instagram with the release of remarkable new record Time Will Wait For No One, it was hard to navigate the uneasy realization that “our bond as a band felt like it was coming apart.”

Time Will Wait For No One - Local Natives — Time Will Wait For No One – Local Natives

It all came to a head at the group’s triumphant August 2021 Greek Theatre show: A milestone moment, a career achievement and a hometown conquering for the much-hyped So Cal indie rock heroes, to be sure.

But to hear the band tell it, “we felt so much gratitude, but there was a gnawing sense that our future together was unclear.” In fact, the band thought it might be the last Local Natives show.

Uncertainty abounded in spades, as Kelcey Ayer and his wife dealt with pregnancy loss and the band eventually returned to the studio with producer John Congleton along for the ride (admittedly a “rocky take-off,” according to the band’s Instagram).

The overall experience – of uncertainty, of navigating uncomfortable truths, of dealing with anxiety, loss, depression and a crashing music economy – is a sentiment echoed by many artists emerging from the pandemic, even former Local Natives tour mates & indie stalwarts like The National.

And yet, it seems that Local Natives realized that the only way “out” is “through” – and through it all, together. The result is a rapturous, delicately crafted album that’s beautiful in its deft touches and production, its soaring harmonies and swells of vibrant color and sound.

“Just Before The Morning” in particular is a cinematic soundscape of a track that’s at once fresh and yet woven through with hallmark Local Natives touches. There’s a warm bass line, a hazy vocal performance and the sense that – as with the best Local Natives songs – the sun is rising to greet another day, figuratively and literally.

In the very best way possible, if ever there were a band so deeply ingrained in a particular region – in a modern sense – like southern California, it’d be the sun-dappled, contemplative music of Local Natives.

To listen to “Just Before The Morning” is to greet a California sunrise.

At the other end of the spectrum rests time-honored Local Natives hits like “Past Lives,” a track seemingly designed to awaken a sleeping giant of a city on a moon-kissed night. The combination is irresistible.

Just before the morning
Starting all over
You go
Just before the morning
Starting all over
You go

With Local Natives, one gets the sense that it’s never too late to start again. With the right people around you, with beloved friends and with an extra helping hand along the way, most anything feels possible – if only you take a moment to embrace the rising sun of a new day.

And if the only way out is indeed through turmoil, then Local Natives have emerged into a bright clearing, with blue skies (and hopefully, more soul-shifting music) on the horizon.

— —