Like Roses - After It Ends
There is a particular kind of heartbreak that comes not from losing something, but from figuring out who you are once it’s gone. On their long-awaited debut album, After It Ends, Berkeley, California’s Like Roses lean headfirst into that uncomfortable space, turning the aftermath of relationships, personal growth, and life’s inevitable changes into eleven tracks of emotionally charged pop punk. To be released on October 23, 2026, via Hopeless Records, the album is a defining moment for a band whose confessional songwriting and gritty, melodic vocals have steadily earned them a devoted following.
Rather than treating their debut as a collection of stitched-together singles, Like Roses have approached After It Ends with a clear emotional throughline. As the band explained ahead of its release, the record explores everything from relationship fallout to the emptiness that follows meaningful experiences, and the uncertainty of starting over. That intention gives the album a sense of cohesion, allowing its individual songs to feel like different stages of the same difficult process.
The record opens with “Sweet,” setting the stage for an album that finds its strength in the tension between vulnerability and urgency. Like Roses have built their identity around pairing deeply personal lyrics with energetic instrumentation, and After It Ends continues to embrace that balance. There is an immediacy to the band’s approach, with gritty vocals and melodic hooks giving even its more introspective moments the kind of intensity that demands to be shouted back from a crowded room.
“Nowhere” brings one of the album’s established highlights into the full-length context, while “Swallow” helps maintain the momentum as the record moves through its opening stretch. The sequencing gives the album room to breathe without sacrificing its forward drive, establishing a sound that feels equally suited to solitary late-night listening and the communal release of a live show.
“Buried” stands as one of the record’s most compelling emotional centrepieces. The band revealed that its lyrics came together over an extended period, with the same ideas continuing to resonate across different experiences. That evolution feels fitting for an album so concerned with the ways we carry the past into the present. Sometimes the feelings we struggle to put into words do not disappear; they simply reveal new meanings as life moves forward. “Buried” captures that lingering weight, reinforcing the record’s central idea that moving on is rarely as simple as leaving something behind.
The acoustic guitar-driven track “Light” provides another moment to reflect before “Wrist” injects the album with a restless, bitter energy. One of the band’s fan-favourite singles, the track emerged naturally once its music took shape, drawing on fragments of writing accumulated over time. The result fits comfortably within Like Roses’ strongest instincts: unfiltered emotion, melodic urgency, and a vocal delivery that makes personal frustration feel universal. It is the kind of song that can transform private resentment into a full-room singalong.
As the album progresses through the tracks “Sheets,” “Closer,” and “Speak,” its focus remains on the complicated emotions that surface when relationships and familiar chapters come to an end. Rather than offering easy answers, Like Roses leave space for uncertainty, allowing the songs to exist in the messy territory between acceptance and lingering attachment. That refusal to oversimplify its subject matter is one of the album’s greatest strengths.
“Holidays” continues that reflective thread, leading into “Happier,” the closing track. Ending the record on a title that suggests emotional resolution is an effective choice, particularly for an album that spends so much time examining what remains after something meaningful has ended. Happiness, in this context, need not mean forgetting what came before. It can simply mean learning to exist beyond it.
With After It Ends, Like Roses deliver a debut that feels purposeful rather than rushed. Its eleven tracks reflect a band intent on making every song count, building a complete statement around experiences that are deeply personal but widely relatable. While familiar emotional territory is hardly new to pop punk and emo, the band's willingness to sit with the uncomfortable details of loss, bitterness, and self-discovery gives the album its identity.
The release also arrives at an exciting point in Like Roses’ trajectory. Following a nearly sold-out run with Driveways, the band has continued to expand its audience, with new US headlining dates and a 2027 European and UK run alongside Sleeping With Sirens on the horizon. After It Ends gives those new listeners a fuller picture of what makes the group worth following beyond its standout singles.
Ultimately, Like Roses have delivered a debut built around the difficult realization that endings rarely provide the closure we expect. Sometimes they leave questions, old wounds, and a version of ourselves we no longer recognize. On After It Ends, the band finds power in those unresolved feelings, transforming them into eleven songs that are as cathartic as they are introspective.
For a band that has spent years building its reputation through raw emotion and infectious hooks, this is a meaningful next chapter—and a reminder that even when something ends, there is still plenty left to say.
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