Ace Enders taps into the mind's elusive state of semi-consciousness with the debut album from his solo side project I Can Make a Mess Like Nobody's Business, an almost acoustic exploration of "the questions you ask yourself in the middle of the night, but for some reason forget about by morning," as Enders states in an interview on the Drive-Thru Records Web site (www.drivethrurecords.com).
With the album, Enders returns to an intimate, personal, purist approach to composition during the heyday of his success as lead singer and guitarist of the Early November.
He does this by maintaining the spontaneity of the creative process, removing the technological barriers that stand between the artist and the listener when a recording studio masters and perfects the product.
The result is a raw, lyric-driven sound that is endearingly imperfect. At times, listening to Enders' voice falter becomes an inadvertent experiment in voyeurism: following it recreates an awkward sense of intimacy, as though one has stumbled upon this very personal moment in this artist's life, and Enders doesn't even know that anyone is watching. His work is unassuming, authentic and unadulterated.
While some tracks are definitively punk, others unabashedly dark or characteristically emo, the album as a whole can best be described as an amalgam that embodies everything good about the spectrum of sounds found in the Drive-Thru Records family.
The spontaneity and variety of "I Can Make a Mess" is best illustrated in "The Best Happiness Money Can Buy," a track that throws a hint of grassroots into the mix with stomps, claps and "yee-haws," and a chorus that invites you in with sing-a-long gang vocals a la Brand New.
The album fluctuates between upbeat melodies such as this, in-your-face lyrical power ballads and brooding, quiet tracks that are something akin to Bright Eyes; the subtle shifts between the three always keep the album moving.
While the name of the album might suggest otherwise, "I Can Make a Mess" is both intelligent and coherent. But just as the mind is left to an onslaught of recollections as it comes to rest at the end of the day-asking the elusive questions that Enders spoke about-the album is polluted with background noise.
Enders battles vocally against these constant distractions that represent the clutter in life pulling us every which way, until he finally asserts that he wants it "to just stop" in "The End of the Background Noise." He asks, "What does it take to make this finally go away? Forever?"
Apparently, a direct appeal will do the trick, as the four concluding tracks of the album are freed of this noise, and Enders sings confidently: "I will wait right here, with my arms by my side, until I can, have back, what I loved before," in "Track 12."
The simplicity that his lyrics yearn for are manifest in the minimalism of the album, as he searches for the place where he began as an artist, with a pure love of music.
One of the highlights of the album occurs before this point, however. "So I Finally Decided to Give Myself a Reason" is a song about solitude and self-reflection that fills out with violins and background vocals-but Enders' voice and the acoustic guitar remain always at the center.
In "a night of many frightening things to take in," Enders finds that the thing of which he is most frightened "is what we won't accept…it's ourselves."
Coupled with "Timsel," the tracks, in tandem, embody the message that pervades the entire album.
Once again, Enders is "all alone" in his thoughts: "So ashamed with my weakness I lie / it always finds me." It's confronting that weakness-and, likewise, the torment of the background noise-that allows us to stop running from ourselves.
In a world that has grown endlessly complicated, it's not impossible to simplify one's life-and I Can Make a Mess reminds us that it is essential not to lose sight of the endeavors that are closest to the heart.
For Enders this is, of course, a love of the creative process, which he succeeds in recreating with the spontaneity and honesty of the album "I Can Make a Mess Like Nobody's Business."
