Ashley Stove - All Summer Long
(Merge)
Ashley Stove's fourth album and second for Merge, All Summer Long, finds
the band with a new lead guitarist, losing long time member Matt Brown
and gaining former Small (who were highly underrated) and Pipe member Mike Kenlan
(who has since left the band as well). The change in guitarist has produced a
change in style, something cleaner, lighter, and more retro, and although it's
hard to determine whether it was the lost member or the added member that led
to this change, I'd hazard to put more weight on the loss.
All Summer Long is a breezy pop album that seems to be directly connected
to pop-punk of the early 1980s. Being on "Superchunk's label" makes comparing
them to Superchunk easy but also misleading; Ashley Stove draw directly from
the same sources Superchunk do, but not second hand. Specificly, those sources are not those
North Carolina neighbors but rather old dead Yankee bands like Minneapolis'
The Replacements and Husker Du and Boston's The Cars. The songs manage to
be both decidedly pop, with plenty of rich hooks, but also rough enough around
the edges to still be considered punk rock--prototypical pop-punk (not some
bastardized emo, lo-fi, or other hybrid).
All Summer Long has several strong Replacements-like pop songs, like "Amen
Grasshopper" and "Devo Freak." "Devo Freak" is an ode to a "smooth" girl,
so smooth that she is even a "Devo Freak." The song starts with a simple
but effective prominent guitar hook before leading into a breakdown chorus with
only tribal drums and the repeating lyrics "My Devo Freak My Devo Freak."
You cannot help but repeat the words as well (at least in your head). "Amen
Grasshopper" is a bit smoother and a bit less (purposefully) clunky, hitting
you with the great guitar hook, and then hitting you over and over again
with it through the chorus and hand claps.
The one song on All Summer Long that threw me was "Out Into the Races," as its
vocal delivery is quite similar to Doug Martsch's, and the whole song could be a
tribute to There's Nothing Wrong With Love-era Built to Spill. It's got
everything you'd expect in a Built to Spill song: airy vocals with repetitive
inflection on phrases in the chorus, a guitar-God (albeit short) guitar solo,
and a soothing (but noisy) steadily-paced guitar and bass part. That song
is followed by "Don't Wreck Your Car," another song about cars. This song is
a bit catchier and a bit more bubblegum, reminding me of ex-Merge band Verbena
with its nod to the dirty Stones and coarse but cute mixed gender vocals. The
song uses a rollicking, toe-tapping beat and nice organ-based bridge section.
Wait, the early 80s gave us bands like The Replacements, Husker Du, and The
Cars, and the early 90s gave us bands like Built to Spill and Superchunk; could
Ashley Stove be a front runner to the next step in the cycle with the early
double-0s? All Summer Long isn't good enough to be a classic album, but that
doesn't mean it isn't good.
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