acrylics

Acrylics
All of the Fire

Record labels started by musicians always happen with the best intentions. It used to be that a more famous band would help another favored band to a label. These days, the do-it-yourself mentality takes on a whole new meaning. Chris Taylor from Grizzly Bear, along with Ethan Silverman, has formed Terrible Records and brought exposure to Class Actress and Brooklyn’s Acrylics whose EP All of the Fire was released October 28th as a 10” vinyl and as mp3’s (iTunes, Amazon.com).

The band name alone couldn’t be more appropriate as it denotes a massive color scheme and bright hardened finish. Original founding members Jason Klauber and Molly Shea met in college and started a band that dissolved. The two kept it going and have since added players Sam Ubl on drums and Travis Rosenberg on keyboard and pedal steel. All of the Fire was recorded over a week’s time in a church that Taylor himself uses. The result is beautiful and stark, fussy and cosmic. The sound has a faint echoed feel and a crystallized feel to the vocals and music. The EP is passively sonic, never browbeating the ear but grabbing it hard to whisper into coolly and sweetly. Jason has a gutsy voice, whiskey soaked like a mid-western Steve Kilbey. Molly Shea bears an angelic quality, whether holding back or letting loose. It’s the perfect mixture of two distinct voices, partly aggressive and partly sincerely playful, that never clash when put together. On the EP we get more of Jason, which is fine, but it will be well-served to hear her more on her own.

All of the Fire is reminiscent of Eighties music in terms of melody and song construction, yet painted with a rough Nineties veneer, like Cutting Crew or Big Country mixed with Baby Animals and punk flourishes. “All of the Fire” feels lifted from 1985. “Avenue I” unfolds like The Church covering Springsteen’s “I’m On Fire.” “Honest Aims” fires like mid-west eighties rock with Euro flavoring and a blistering finish. The songs are evidence of why there’s a lot of talk about Acrylics. They have distilled and put forth much at once: Americana bathed in eclectic shades of rock music, subtle melodies and psychedelia.

Brian Tucker