Frances Tingle
This Live Album From DFW-Based Trio The Aches Is An Electrifying Punk Show That You Can Experience Anywhere.
Welcome to Song of the Day, where we hip you to all the new local releases you should be caring about. By highlighting one new North Texas-sprung tune every week day, our hope is that you’ll find something new to love about the rich and abundant DFW music scene five days a week.
The Aches — Shoot!
RIYL: fuzzy-sounding live albums
What else you need to know: Made up of three childhood friends, The Aches have been bringing their noise-inspired punk all around DFW for the past couple of years.
Imperfections in recordings are often advantages when it comes to punk music. You want that kind of stuff to be loud, distorted, real. Coming off a live album, today’s track satisfies those anarchic needs.
Back At Growl was recorded at The Aches’ performance at Growl Records back on Feb. 18, coming out a year and a day later. The record takes you through the act’s 16-song setlist, complete with speaker feedback, cheers and audience interaction, making it feel like you’re really there. It’s a nice glimpse into how this young band is coming into their own as performers, which by the way, is going pretty swimmingly. We stumbled upon the group at a show at Double Wide and it was a whole lot of ear-ringing fun.
“Shoot!” starts with a bang (pun not intended) and is compelling right off the bat. What follows is a lot of wavy, distorted guitar and yelping vocals. It’s chaotic in the best way and the fast-yet-steady bass line and drums assure you that the musicians are in control. Around a minute-and-a-half in, the song gets a little less punky and more noise-adjacent with a changed pace and experimental riffs. Once you think you got “Shoot!” figured out, the trio surprises you and keeps you hanging on for the ride.
So far only Back At Growl and a couple of other live tracks found on the band’s bandcamp are available to stream. The Aches definitely have the vibe of being a live band — it certainly has the chops for it — but we’re also holding out for studio-recorded material in the future.