Aceface Can't Get Away From Sting
Thursday February 21, 2008 @ 05:30 PM
By: ChartAttack.com Staff

Aceface

Sting's hipness may now be well past its best-by date, but it was a very different world a few decades ago. In 1979, he appeared in Quadrophenia (a film based on the rock opera of the same name by The Who) as Ace Face — '60s mod jargon for the person who's the coolest of the cool.

While the rock band Aceface have nothing against the recently resurrected Police bassist, it was actually the British-born slang word and its associated mod culture that inspired their choice of name and music.

"It was meant semi-self-mockingly at the time," says singer/guitarist Carl Nanders, "but the Sting/Quadrophenia connection has followed us ever since.

"Initially, Aceface was founded as a kind of experiment in true mod revivalism, and we paid a lot of attention to a sort of self-defined sense of authenticity as we understood it. Although it's worth mentioning that, even at the time, the fascination was with mod culture, not British culture specifically."

It's been 10 years since the first incarnation of Aceface appeared (the band now consist of Nanders, Gregary Lyons, Matthew Leaker, Mike Anderson and Freek Siezenga), and while they still tend to dress the part when they perform live, the five-piece have, to some extent, outgrown the mod sound and persona that led up to their last release, 2005's ThreatLevel: RedWhiteBlue.

"I'd say it's still a strong reference point, but there's a lot more in there as well," Nanders explains. "I think we were already musically beyond a kind of revivalist box by ThreatLevel."

After that full-length was completed, Aceface went on a brief hiatus, but Nanders emerged from it with six songs that the group have turned into a new, self-titled EP.

"The band is still the same, but the songs are quite different," Nanders says. "ThreatLevel ended up being a highly politicized record, with big, busy, complicated arrangements and a sense of frenetic energy.

"This EP doesn't purport to carry any message. It's musically simpler in arrangement, it's more personal, and it feels darker to me. Again, not by design, but that's my sense of it now that it's finished."

Tour plans are still up in the air, but Aceface will celebrate the release of their new disc with a show at Toronto's Neutral Lounge this Saturday. The EP will be available at the show and officially hits the streets via Fading Ways Records in the spring.

—Scott Bryson