By Cassidy Byrnes

The Los Angeles based indie pop band, The Aces, have dropped their third studio album, I’ve Loved You For So  Long. Members, Katie Henderson (guitar), McKenna Petty (bass), and sisters, Alisa Ramirez  (drums) and Cristal Ramirez (lead vocals and guitar), grew up together in Utah and have been  playing music together since their childhood.  

I had the pleasure of seeing them perform at the Hinterland Music Festival in 2022 where they  performed their most recent single at the time, “Girls Make Me Wanna Die.” This single did end  up on the new album with several other singles that dropped in more recent months. 

It is obvious that the band went into the studio with a clear vision for this record. I’ve Loved You For  So Long is an incredibly easy listen because of its cohesiveness but that isn’t to say that there aren’t standouts. Some tracks, such as “I’ve Loved You For So Long,” “Not the Same,” and “Attention,” have a much smoother indie-pop feel; whereas tracks like “Girls Make Me Wanna Die” and  “Suburban Blues,” have much heavier instrumentals with their signature alternative sound. While  the production has a little bit of everything, lyrically, there is definitely a theme.  

Being that three of the four members identify as queer, many of their songs have a lyrically “gay” vibe, I mean “Girls Make Me Wanna Die,” come on. Along with the queerness, the band leans into discussions of mental wellness and relationships in their lyrics. Feelings of mediocrity, self sabotage, and depression come out in lyrics such as “I finally got what I want/Finally got what I want/But the next part’s kinda comical/I’m still fucking miserable” on the song “Miserable” and “Call it how it is/I know that I’m hard to deal with” on “Solo.” Ramirez sings “They all seem so happy/What am I missing?/Nobody knows that I’m dying inside/Nobody knows that I’m hating my life” on the song “Suburban Blues.” One of the many things that the band excels at is the contrast between searing lyrics about heavy topics and their ability to produce a pop anthem out of them.  

The band will be embarking on a U.S. tour starting in September and are set to perform here in Minneapolis at Fine Line on October 18th. Check out I’ve Loved You For So Long now, anywhere you listen to music.