The ACBs, Stona Rosa
Reviewed by: Christian Hagen
I recently had a conversation with a fellow music writer (whose name I shall withhold) regarding my disappointment over the new Tapes ‘n Tapes album.
“I’m just really bored by indie rock lately,” he said.
And that’s when I realized: I’ve been feeling the same way. Here we are, only a few weeks into 2011, and I’ve already been disappointed by two major indie rock records, and I’ve all but given up on the genre. Consider 2010. The year was flush with great albums, almost none of which were straightforward indie rock.
‘Was Paste right?’ I thought. ‘Is indie dead?’
But sometimes, all we need is a reminder of why we loved something in the first place to love it all over again.
The debut album from Kansas City natives The ACBs can be described several ways: lo-fi, melodic, pop. But the word that is most appropriate is simply: indie. And when I put on my critical cap, there’s a lot of negative things I could say about this band if I wanted to. Derivative. Simplistic. A tad repetitive.
But, if I’m honest, damned if I don’t just enjoy the hell out of this album.
The ACBs hit all the most prevalent tropes of indie rock from the past couple decades. The opening, “Italian Girls,” starts as a pure Pavement riff with an upbeat, light alt-rock chorus that would have felt so right in the 90s one might be forgiven for thinking that’s exactly when it was recorded. “Street Fighter II,” the title itself a callback to frivolous days when arcades where viable places to hang, is fuzzed-out beach pop.
Along the rest of the way, they stumble earnestly into lonely acoustic laments, swirling post-rock, and appropriately soft-hearted lite-jazz fusion. And with every song, a listener will likely say, “Oh! That sounds just like___,” and while it will be a different band every time, every time it will be exactly right. Because The ACBs are a vessel, channeling the best and brightest of indie’s past.
“It Sure Looks Dark and Cold” is Bon Iver. “Boy Like Me” is The New Pornographers (albeit on a sugar rush). “Be Professional” is The Dodos. “Hold Phone” is Mason Proper (and perhaps a dozen other bands with who channel the same sound).
Everything, down to the album’s title, recalls indie rock history and follows the formulas perfectly. But if it seems like I’m deriding the band for trailing their predecessors a little too closely, I’m absolutely not. In fact, I’d like to thank them: Stona Rosa reminds me of the first time I heard a band that made me want to tell everyone I knew to listen. And they remind me that when I’m through being critical, at the end of the day, I’m still a fan of rock music. It’s what got me listening in the first place.
Try listening to “My Face” and not getting that song stuck in your head, or at the very least bouncing your head. True, it’s thoroughly repetitive, covered in sugar, and lacking in serious depth. It breaks no boundaries, goes nowhere that hasn’t been traversed before. Does it sound like a Born Ruffians song? Yes. But at no point listening to it do I care about any of that. Because this album is everything I enjoy about indie rock: lo-fi, guitar-driven, peppy, honest, unpretentious, and, above all, fun.
So am I a little too sweet on this band? Am I putting blinders on and ignoring whatever obvious criticisms I could concoct to excuse not enjoying them? Absolutely.
I don’t care what anyone says. I’m smitten with Stona Rosa.