Ask an a cappella fan to name an American a cappella group that’s all-male, five members and performs its own original pop/rock material, and chances are that groups like Rockapella, The House Jacks or m-pact will be the among the most common responses.
And rightfully so, but make room at the table for five high schoolers from Ithaca, New York who call themselves Ascending Height and who have followed up their multi-CARA-winning debut CD with a 6-track sophomore effort entitled "Turn It Up" that will likely leave you scratching your head, wondering if and how it’s possible that these boys…ahem, men…are barely old enough to drive and yet have fashioned an album that can blow many other pro groups clear out of the water.
To be fair, though the group is Ascending Height, it would be perhaps be more appropriate to call it “Robert Dietz and Ascending Height”, a la Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, with Dietz taking on the jobs of Frankie Valli, Bob Gaudio and Bob Crue all at once. To wit, all of the songs of the album are either composed outright by Dietz or feature his musical and/or lyrical contributions. He contributes solos to four of the six tracks, all of the VP on the album is Dietz’s (with a great deal of studio help), all of the arrangements are Dietz’s, and the kid produced and recorded the entire thing, too (the only real outside creative force is studio wizard Tat Tong who mixed and mastered)! At this point, calling him a “wunderkind” is a probably selling him short, and if they offer a cappella scholarships to Tufts, Penn, Stanford, USC Michigan, Cornell or any of the usual suspects in North Carolina, someone should offer one to young Mr. Dietz right quick.
Is everything on the album really that fantastic? OK, to be fair, there’s no question that the accomplishments of these high schoolers is made all the more remarkable by their young age. But this isn’t just a gifted school group with a talented, adult music director who drills his students into perfection. This is a self-directed group, performing original material! An entire CD of original material, folks – something some pro groups are still too afraid to try very often and something most collegiate groups avoid like the plague.
And not just original music, but good and varied and interesting original music, made all the more engaging via sophisticated, well-conceived arrangements and first-rate production values. No, I suspect that Ascending Height can’t quite create their layered, sampled and processed album sound in concert, but that’s become the rule rather than the exception in a cappella these days so it would be wrong to take them to task, especially when the results are so entertaining.
In the interests of full disclosure, there are certainly issues once could take – most notably, with the quality and mixing of the soloists. It’s no one’s fault, but these are high school-aged voices and they simply haven’t developed fully yet. It’s less of a problem in background “blocks”, but the solo voices shade toward the nasal and lack a certain bite or edge that would serve the material that much better – e.g., I’d love to hear a badass collegiate group cover “Breaking the Silence” or “Setup for the Fall”. Also to their disadvantage, Tat has placed the leads squarely in the middle of most of the mixes so the thundering octave’d bass and equally thundering VP are often threatening to swallow up the soloists. And not all of the material – be it compositions or arrangements – is quite up to the same level. The opening “Step” has a fabulous groove but is voiced a bit oddly and therefore lacks a grounding harmonic center. Ditto for “500 Words” which opens and ends with an engaging rhythm and has an intriguing bridge, but whose verse and chorus are abruptly conventional and ultimately a bit of a letdown.
Still though, I can’t get past how far ahead of so many of their peers these kids already are. I have no clue if college will force them to go their separate ways but it seems like either way, the a cappella world will be the beneficiary. If they scatter, then five groups will be lucky enough to enjoy their talent. If they stay together and keep making exciting, interesting music, well then we all win. Add as favorites (24) | Quote this article on your site | Views: 3213
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