I must say, The Torn ACLs are impressing me. I have been listening to their new album, Make A Break, Make A Move, online while waiting for it to arrive in the mail and I really enjoy it. As mentioned before, their freshman album, Cedar-By-The-Sea, contains a few catchy melodies and, one of my current favorites, their epically thuggish docu-drama Reputation. Naturally, I looked for more.
Make A Break, Make A Move not only implies the band’s future goals but illustrates perfectly a band on the upward climb, piercing a veil of thickly obstructive cloud cover. Yet the skies are not all bluebirds and sunshiny rainbows up there; it may be smart to relax down on the technicolor-tree covered shore. For while The Torn ACLs execute impressively and their album styling as continuous metaphor is fun, the band is singing about things they see on the side of the road – or altruisms such as “just don’t crash the boss’s car”. Their tightly choreographed jingles are simple and while the lyrics could be deeper, the songs, like Two Four Six Eight and Bass Drum, are nonetheless entertaining.
There are occational slips; I’m hoping that Can’t Say No To Friday is a well-crafted Rebecca Black parody though I’m not so sure. But overall it’s very good, and the band is clearly refining their sound. I’m happy listening to them and happy they’re still producing. Any day now there will be bluebirds and sunshiny rainbows up there above the clouds.. and thats when the ACLs will pounce. You better be there when it happens.
[itunes id=”496421921″] Amazon.