4 o'clock in the afternoon is the 2022 EP from Long Beach based alternative rock band Chase Petra, following their debut 2019 album, Liminal. “4 P.M. is the time of day for me where I fucking hate everything, I cannot stand the afternoon,” singer Hunter Allen says with a hint of laughter. “Did I just waste my day? I wanna fall asleep and I feel like I don’t know what to do with my afternoon and the morning was wasted. It’s just a bad time historically for me.” This state, and the time that brings it, are the thematic thread that ties together the six tracks on 4 O’Clock in the Afternoon. Allen, along with bassist Brooke Dickson and drummer Evan Schaid, initially planned a conceptual LP, but instead ended up with a blunt, bare-bones EP that works its way through depressions, grief, trauma, and quarter-life crises. They’re recounted over a mix that darts between spritely garage-pop, thundering emo-punk, and acoustic alt-rock, all rendered with an earworm melodic knack that would make Patrick Stump blush.