Rockbites: The Ashley Stove’s simply beautiful All Summer Long

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March 2001 • Rockbites Alternative Daily

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The Ashley Stove’s simply beautiful All Summer Long
19 March 2001

On their new album All Summer Long, Raleigh, North Carolina rural punk (OK, alt country) quartet The Ashley Stove do not conjure avant-garde musical textures or spoon-feed us reassuringly edgy pap. (Not that I don’t favor the avant-garde and edgy; I do. It’s just that I resent formulaic edginess even more than I do formulaic pop.)
    To the contrary, founder Ben Barwick (vocals, guitar, keyboards), Jennifer Walker (bass, vocals), and Billy Alphin (percussion) are here for the songs. And songs, in the end, are what matter in pop music. Face it: sonic decoration, like make-up, can make an otherwise beautiful thing more so, just as outer beauty looks good on inner beauty. Decorated crap is still crap.
    All of which is a rather long-winded way of saying that All Summer Long, superficially, is completely pedestrian. No lipstick or mascara (or boy-doll hair & clothes, if you favor men; or noise guitar & druggy electronics, if you favor literalness).
    This disc is so unassuming you might not give it a second glance. But fully exposed under this proud lack of façade is some natural beauty.
    Barwick started as a drummer in a high school metal band with former Ashley Stove bandmate Matt Brown. Ten years ago the pair spent a summer working in London pubs and got to see Pixies three times. Frank Black, Kim Deal, & Company so inspired them that on return to the US Barwick and Brown created The Ashley Stove.
    You can still hear some Pixies influence on the new LP, which also flaunts references to other bands influenced by Pixies, including Spoon and Teenage Fanclub.
    In transition during the making of the record—co-founder Brown had left and the band hadn’t found a replacement—The Ashley Stove recorded All Summer Long as a trio with guest guitarists Mike Kenlan and Jim Brantley. Brantley has now joined as a permanent member. (Bunny, band-mascot weimeraner, is not credited on the album but features prominently on the artwork)
    The Ashley Stove start a major US tour this Saturday (24 March) in Raleigh, with dates set through late April. They’ll play various dates with Action Slacks, The Rock-A-Teens, The Vespertines, and others. Their 30 March and 17 April gigs will be Webcast on the Digital Club Network—check our link. The band’s Web site lists all the tour dates.
    All Summer Long, the fourth album from The Ashley Stove, hits stores tomorrow in North America on Merge Records. Comfortable like old jeans, energizing like a bright new day, we give it three bites out of five.

Rockbites ratings  5: life changing, 4: stunning, 3: captivating, 2: amusing, 1: annoying.

| The Ashley Stove | | TAS on Merge Records | | Digital Club Network | | discography | | CD | | top of page |

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