As Everything Unfolds: Seeing Life In Full Colour

Buckinghamshire melodic post-hardcore quintet AS EVERYTHING UNFOLDS set the scene ablaze with their 2020 debut Within Each Lies the Other, but were almost entirely robbed of their opportunity to promote it the usual way, for obvious, well-documented reasons too tedious to go into here. To their credit, they didn’t let it get to them; a livestreamed show, active social media presence and a Discord server for fans all served as a way to get their message out into the world. Now, they’re raring to go with second album Ultraviolet, easily their strongest set of songs to date, so we caught up with singer Charlie Rolfe to give some colour to the story.

“It was all we knew, really,” she remarks of the stunted rollout of WELTO, and their pivoting to predominantly promoting the album online. “We took a gamble and it paid off,” she muses, “especially with being our first album, we got a lot of space to grow. Coming into our second album, I’m glad we did that, so we don’t have to do as much of that groundwork, we can just enjoy the release process.” The groundwork she’s referring to is a wildly successful campaign that saw them garner critical acclaim from plenty of major outlets, winning over swathes of new fans and outperforming their own expectations hugely – especially on a debut album. Not only that, but their last show before the pandemic was ultra local – “it was at Bucks Uni to maybe 30 people. It was the most bizarre experience to go from that to playing Download Pilot to thousands of people!”

Ultraviolet, to hear Charlie tell it, is the band’s attempt to take stock of this; rather than their debut that was often casting its glance inwards and – to be reductive – more negative in its portrayal of mental health and Charlie’s often autobiographical, though still drenched in metaphor, lyrics. Now they’re surveying the fruits of the groundwork they laid; there’s still an autobiographical element to it but the majority is a reflection on their hard work and success, as seen through the prism of not just ultraviolet, but the entire light spectrum.

“I did a degree in photography,” Charlie begins, “so a lot of my craft was honed in a darkroom. You have to expose photographs to ultraviolet light to see them in full colour, so the concept is to see everything clearly, you have to expose it to ultraviolet light.” Those themes came a lot earlier in the creative process than before; “I’m not even joking, I did a PowerPoint,” she laughs. “We had moodboards, outfits; we really thought about it and everyone was on the same page.” Lyrically, “I was in a much more positive place than on WELTO,” she offers. 

While they did most of the writing during the pandemic and various lockdowns, there’s still references to being able to escape that. Take Flip Side, for instance; opening with the kind of stomping metalcore riff that’ll send crowds feral, its bridge contains the lyric ‘while I spin in circles, all I see are lights’: Charlie explains it as referring to “those weird surreal moments where I’m on stage, spinning around wondering what’s going on, how has this happened – but in a nice way!” On the other hand, Rose Bouquets tackles the letting go of things that no longer are necessary, or don’t serve a purpose any more. In a way, it’s their love letter to WELTO, acknowledging all it did for them but mentally preparing to move on from the situations and thoughts that it documented. 

“‘Let go of those rose bouquets that don’t serve you anyway, serve their purpose, let them lay’ means they’ve had their time, I can mentally let go of the anguish and frustrations, to move onto this next phase. It’s something I’d never done before and it’s quite poetic,” she says. It’s also the only song that doesn’t fit the purple theme of Ultraviolet, one that she’s happy is picked up on when we point out its ties to the red colour template of their debut. “On the surface it seems strange, but if you know our band, you pick up on that.” 

Something she and AS EVERYTHING UNFOLDS are keen to do now is give Ultraviolet the love it deserves; “we really suffered with not being able to promote the album live. We only did a headline tour a year after the album was released,” along with a single support tour. Now, “we’re really excited to create a really cool live experience,” though she’s careful to not focus too much on the future without living in the present. 

While Ultraviolet does offer some introspection, such as Rose Bouquet’s farewell letter to the anguishes of before, it feels far more celebratory and positive overall, as Charlie freely admits. Alongside that, Blossom sees them doing their utmost to celebrate their own growth not only as a band, but as people by admitting faults and trying to better themselves; (“I’m here to confess I’ve been hateful, I’ve been spiteful and I’m trying my best, as I’m learning to grow”). Taking stock of hers and the band’s achievements, is something she’s never been particularly good at; “I’m very much guilty of that,” she admits, but Ultraviolet, especially with songs like Flip Side, makes sure to finally take stock of their meteoric rise and revel in those moments spinning under the stage lights.

Ultraviolet is out now via Long Branch Records.

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