About a month ago, The Early November‘s frontman, Ace Enders, put up a random YouTube video entitled “Undecided… From Voice Memo Sessions, Unmixed.”

On the video description, Enders wrote: “A few months back, I was mixing a record for another band. While each track was bouncing down (roughly 3-4 minuets each) I wrote 8 songs in that time, playing and singing the first thing that came into my mind. I recorded each as a voice memo in that moment and then built the song around that. So no metronome and very little edits. Just a cracky voice memo that you can hear all over the album. Thankfully trevor from el.de.te was there the whole time to document it.. here is a small piece of it!!”

Those aforementioned “voice memo sessions” have now been turned into Growing In, an eleven-track record that Enders released today by surprise under I Can Make A Mess, his solo side-project that was brought to life early in 2010. Aside from Enders’ signature feel-good acoustic tracks and the occasional inserts of his raw iPhone recordings, Giving In also contains a lot more buoyant and power-poppy tracks compared to The Early November’s material.

This surprise record is, overall, a very solid, under-the-radar collection of great tunes and giving it a spin should be high up on everybody’s list.

Giving In is now available via BandCamp for under ten bucks. You can listen to it below.

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Dana Reandelar

If not hunched over her desk writing about music, Dana can be found binge-watching old episodes of Gilmore Girls or condensing long rants to 140 characters. She also writes for Idobi Radio, and is an Off The Record podcast contributor.

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