Ace Enders - Australian EP

8/10

"Two days before I left for this tour I decided to make a cd just for Australia. I wanted to makeup for having to cancel the last time I was supposed to make it over. This cd will only be sold here. At this show. Thank you so much for your support." That is what the back cover of the album says, hand written and signed by Ace. Only 200 copies of this album were released and they all have hand drawn artwork and a specific number out of 200.

Ace released this album exclusively in Australia to make up for some show cancellations. Lucky for Australians the four song acoustic ep is actually quite good, not to mention about 17 minutes long which a solid amount of material for only four songs.

The EP opens with the song "Ready Ankles" which starts as a simple acoustic track with some hints of strings and a solid catchy melody. The song eventually moves to a louder more emotional section where a bass comes in and Ace uses his divine ability to raise his voice and hit some amazing notes. The next track is called "Rosary", and it definitely gives itself some lasting value with the vocal melody. Similar to the previous track, this song is all acoustic with some strings, and a catchy chorus. Along with solid lyrics this track involves a bit more texture in the percussion department, which is a great production choice on an all acoustic album.

We then move to the song "Baby Steps", which is where the EP begins to show its true colors and we find its one flaw. The song itself isn't the flaw, but we notice that the tone of the album is all slow acoustic songs. Same basic format to this song, with a chorus melody that somewhat resembles Soco Amaretto Lime by Brand New. This is the shortest track on the EP, followed by our final track entitled "Open Windows". Another great song, which is what really shows with this EP, he didn't just write a bunch of songs for it, the entirety of the EP has all great song writing and a ton of emotion.

Despite the short length and simple songs I think this is a great album, and although I really like the acoustic versions of all these songs I would like to see them further developed for another album perhaps. The only thing noticeable about this album is the simple production, which is understandable, but in all other aspects I think it's a great album.

For a limited time you can stream the entire album here.