Band: The Aces
Album: Under My Influence
VÖ: 17.07.2020
Label: Red Bull Records / Sony
Website: www.theacesofficial.com
The Aces are ready to greet you now, again. It’s been two years since the quartet released its acclaimed debut album, When My Heart Felt Volcanic. And in those two years, the band has opened for 5 Seconds of Summer, headlined its own tour, and spent a countless number of hours candidly documenting everything in-between (and after) in the songs that make up Under My Influence, or, as The Aces’ fans like to call it, “TA2.” Universally relatable and yet deeply personal, The Aces return with the confidence only time and true friendship can bring. Under My Influenceisn’t just an album brimming with honesty, it’s an album brimming with trust—trust in themselves, as individuals and as a group, and trust in their camaraderie with their fans.
“We spent so much time with our fans before going into this album,” McKenna Petty (bass) says. Those encounters spent, as Petty notes, “talking with them and hearing what they’re going through and how our band has impacted them” showed the girls how alike they all were. “We realized our fans are literally us,” Alisa Ramirez (drums) says. “It made us so much more comfortable to say what we want, to joke in our lyrics, and push our sound further because we knew they’d understand it.” So, with that, some time spent with top-tier collaborators (Christian Medice, Kyle Shearer, and Nate Campany), and a whole lotta introspection, The Aces began to, as the album title suggests, fall under its own, sublime influence.
The record kicks off in, as Cristal Ramirez (vocals, guitar; and Alisa’s sister) says, “quintessential Aces fashion”: sparkling guitars, slick basslines, and a buoyant promise of hope. “You know, you know, you know I’m coming back to you,” Cristal sings on “Daydream,” the album’s first single. And come back they do. From there, flows the funk-tinged, lovelorn “New Emotion,” a song Cristal says is “basically part two of [When My Heart Felt Volcanic’s] ‘Bad Love.’” Fans of When My Heart Felt Volcanic’s portrait of romance in the digital age will find a kindred spirit in the anthemic ode to social media anxiety, “My Phone Is Trying To Kill Me” (co-written with Justin Tranter) Meanwhile, songs like the beachy “Kelly,” bittersweet “Lost Angeles,” confidently lustful “Can You Do,” and hands-up-I’m-over-this energy of “Not Enough” find The Aces exploring love, desire, and breakups with candid honesty, using gender pronouns explicitly for the first time in its lyrics.
“It was something we wanted to explore,” Cristal says of using gender pronouns. And though the band steered clear of them on its debut, “we felt like we were being untruthful and inauthentic to the stories to not use gender pronouns and own who we—Alisa and myself—are, as queer women.” Because truthfully, you can swap Kelly for Chad and the heartbreak will still be there; the story is still the same. “Our trust for one another is so rare and special,” Petty adds. “It’s important to see a band like ours truly, genuinely support one another. There’s room for nuance and empathy for people who are different from you.”
Bold declarations of love for another and love for the self are abound on the album. Going deeper into Under My Influenceis an exercise in returning to the self and learning to be fueled by what’s honest and true to you. From reflecting on the places that influence its view of the world (“801”) to the places and people that come to be a chosen home and family (“Going Home”), The Aces always see the glass half full. “If any of these songs felt scary to put out or made us nervous about what others would think, that’s what assured us we were doing something right,” Alisa says. Under The Aces’ influence, life is better because of honesty, trust, and authentic affection. “We just want to send the message of joy and positivity,” Katie Henderson (lead guitar/vocals) says. “That’s what we’re all about.” It is, after all, why they decided to call the album Under My Influence. “When you listen, you quite literally are,” the band says. “We want our fans to feel submerged in this music and walk away feeling closer to us than ever.”
It wouldn’t be an Aces record if it didn’t end with some semblance of hope. Where When My Heart Felt Volcanicleft off with the hope of a lover returning, Under My Influencefinds The Aces standing tall, cheeky, and fantastically, hopefully independent (“Zillionaire”). When The Aces were just starting out, their website described the group as “a band of four girls preparing to take over the world.” Well, preparation time is over. With Under My Influence, The Aces have gone from four best friends hailing from Provo, Utah with a dream of making music to full-fledged global stars. No “Daydream’ing” needed.
UNDER MY INFLUENCETrack List:
Daydream
New Emotion
My Phone is Trying to Kill Me
Kelly
Can You Do
All Mean Nothing
801
I Can Break Your Heart Too
Lost Angeles
Not Enough
Cruel
Thought of You
Going Home
Zillionaire
Infos zur vorherigen Veröffentlichung:
Band: The Aces
Album: When My Heart Felt Volcanic
VÖ: 06.04.2018
Label: Red Bull Records / Sony
Website: www.theacesofficial.com
Utah quartet The Aces are excited to announce the release of their much anticipated debut album, When My Heart Felt Volcanic on April 6th. Serving as a follow up to 2017’s critically acclaimed I Don’t Like Being Honest EP, the album is a collection of songs that exhibits confidence and polish that bellies their young years.
‘When My Heart Felt Volcanic is so special to us, a collection of songs about our experiences over the past three years growing up and transitioning from adolescence to adulthood. We can’t wait for our fans to get to know us through them,’ says The Aces.
In celebration of the release of When My Heart Felt Volcanic The Aces are currently on the road with COIN for a full US tour wrapping up on March 17th. After a very short break, The Aces will hop across the pond for a run of headline dates throughout the UK and Europe.
I Don’t Like Being Honest was released last June and quickly garnered much attention from the press. The band was named an Artist To Watch in 2017 by Earmilk, Idolator, and PAPER Mag to name a few. They were also a featured artist in the Youth Issue for Paper Mag, a Nylon Band Crush, and a Weekly Discovery artist for American Songwriter, a Drop artist for Refinery29 and were named a Rising Style Influencer from The Hollywood Reporter. Additionally they received stamps of approval from NPR, NOISEY and FADER.
The Aces spent 2017 on the road with a SOLD OUT headline show at The Mercury Lounge and shared the stage with the likes of Joywave and Portugal. The Man. Their single ‘Stuck’ landed them in the Top 40 on Alternative Radio charts and a feature as Billboard’s Chart Breaker artist in the December 2017 issue and a Billboard 2018 Artist To Watch.
