Bloomer: “Good Morning, It’s Breakfast Time” – washed away by sunlight and a downpour of musical ideas

Bloomer is a rock band from Baltimore, MD created by musical partners Luke Boardman and Matt Zorzi. The band’s sound emerges from a mix of 70’s & 90’s Rock, Soul and American Roots Music. “Good Morning, It’s Breakfast Time” is contemporary indie rock at its finest. The music is sprawling and psychedelic. The mood can range from rocking to mellow. Bloomer is a band that has great song writing abilities and expressive improvisational abilities. Depending on the given song, the band moves effortlessly between straight rock and psychedelic infused jam-band grooves. This 4 track EP showcases both the band’s alt-rock sound and their improvisational excursions. However, they never confuse improvisation with musical masturbation.

“Good Morning, It’s Breakfast Time” is wonderfully accessible thanks to its relatable sense of communal fun, as well as the band’s own self-awareness. It is clear from the opening track, “Don’t Wait for Lightning” that the band is genuinely enjoying themselves as they create a sense of togetherness. Among tones that reflect sunlight as brightly as you might expect directly after a storm, the EP journeys confidently through melodic ideas as each band member is allowed to shine.

Together, they create a landscape in which the world is washed away by sunlight as well as a varied downpour of musical ideas filled with a lot of different melodies, musical subtleties, and sounds. The second three minutes of the EP comes in the form of “Distracter”, which gets keeps set going on a smooth note, with its laid-back rhythms, motifs, and refrains; one minute it is eerie and almost retro, the next minute laden with rejuvenating guitar and bass lines. The song rides a lush moderate, comfortable beat and melody backed by rich harmonies.

I’d say that “Next Time” is the best song on the EP, and a great overall Bloomer song. It is extremely catchy and great instrumentally, and lyrically. The guitar playing and the drumming are done extraordinarily well. The vocals and harmonies also shine brighter here than anywhere else on this recording.

To put it bluntly, this is a song I can’t get enough of, and will listen to endlessly. Some may compare Bloomer to the legendary Grateful Dead. Though they do not particularly sound like The Dead, they do combine some of the same elements. And all of them are evident on this song.

“Coral” brings all the jam-band qualities of Bloomer to the table. This instrumental is unlike any song on this album, but it’s still great. It’s opening guitar-driven bars seem to be influenced by African rhythms before the track switches into an almost 70’s rock fusion flavor.

This is a live track so it allows itself to meander through various stylistic colors. It’s is a maze of intricate guitar arpeggios and gorgeous piano-tinged high-energy instrumental passages that will no doubt soar in amphitheaters.

Outside of this ambitious closing piece, “Good Morning, It’s Breakfast Time” is relatively less musically adventurous, and the simpler song-craft used on the other tracks seems purposeful, in the way it provides a clearer glimpse inside the heads of its writers and performers.

In the sense that too many flurries of notes, hypnotic grooves and exploratory improvisations can often mask deeper meaning for the average listener. This group-think ethos avoids the title of ‘weird’ and embraces the one of ‘eclectic’, which artistically has significantly more attractive connotations, perfectly suited to what Bloomer has to offer musically.

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