Ash - Pop melodies, Northern Irish style

For a band whose founding core came together in 1992 and that is still releasing new albums in 2015, it's only natural to talk about changes in direction and ups and downs, both in terms of quality and popularity. There is, however, one strength that has to be granted to Ash, whatever you think of their music: they have always stayed true to themselves, consistently delivering songs and albums instantly recognisable as their own, without ever repeating themselves.

There have been three- and four-piece line-ups, there's been a sweet sound, or a rough one, or a heavy one, or one lightly touched by electronics, but always, in every one of these versions, the songs were there and you immediately recognised Ash. Certainly the most important reason is Tim Wheeler's highly distinctive vocal timbre, but you also have to factor in the consistency of a melodic style that has generated countless hummable moments, never identical to one another but always traceable back to the same songwriter, as well as the way those melodies are delivered, always clothed in just the right amount of energy and intensity to feel vital without the sound ever becoming overbearing. That same intensity can also be found in the band's many ballads, obviously much softer in sound, but just as able to convey the force of the feelings expressed as the more classically rock tracks. This ability to reinvent themselves while staying true to themselves has also meant that, even in their less inspired moments, Ash have never produced anything truly disastrous or flop-worthy, never dropping below the threshold of listenability.

The beginnings and an immediate run of high-level consistency

Tim Wheeler and bassist Mark Hamilton have known each other since the age of 10 and play in a band called Vietnam, inspired by Iron Maiden. Once that band splits up, the two decide to form their own, recruit drummer Rick McMurray, and decide the band's name will be the first short word they find in the dictionary. The trio immediately start writing lots of songs, and their live shows are instantly very well received locally, but unfortunately they struggle to get their demos heard by anyone who could fund a studio recording. After a while, a small London label takes a chance on them and manages to get Ash's music played to influential figures like Steve Lamacq and John Peel, who show their approval. At that point, signing to Infectious Records is a natural consequence, and in October 1994 the mini-album Trailer arrives.

Tim and Mark are 17, and Trailer carries the sound of three teenagers wanting to split the world in half in the mid-Nineties. The record sounds raw and imperfect, with the guitar always rough-edged and the bass very often pushed to the fore more to add bulk than to fulfil its proper role within the rhythm section, a combination that at times covers the vocals a little too much and even the drums, with the vocals themselves clearly unconcerned with formal precision. It's the classic record that channels youthful energy in just the right way, showcasing freshness and attitude, helped along by a melodic framework that's already inspired, managing to be easy to listen to even if not always immediate. The seven songs alternate between particularly aggressive episodes with a sound recalling grunge's darkness, and leaner ones with a less intense emotional range. Among the latter are the best-known songs, released as singles: "Jack Names The Planet", which leans hard on a melody that is indeed rather immediate here, "Petrol", which makes the most of particularly well-judged guitar riffs that also have the merit of not repeating themselves throughout the track, and "Uncle Pat", the most moderate of the bunch in every sense.

The other four songs share the same common traits mentioned above, but expressed in different ways, from "Seasons", which has no chorus and features a dynamic overlapping of voice and guitar, to "Get Out", where there's no holding back and everything runs at full throttle, to the pairing of "Intense Thing" and "Obscure Thing", the two tracks most steeped in tension and negativity.

With Trailer, Ash immediately showcase one of their main strengths: the ability to take a few very specific basic ideas and flesh them out with consistency but never stasis. This band's talent is already clearly evident here, shown off to best effect by massive doses of rawness and electricity.

The band's popularity is growing exponentially, even more so in 1995 after the release of two irresistible singles, "Kung Fu" and "Girl From Mars". They even land a deal with Warner for the US market, and by now everything is set for their debut on the long-playing format.

1977, the year both Wheeler and Hamilton were born as well as the year the first "Star Wars" came out, arrives in spring 1996 and is inevitably a huge success, complete with a No. 1 spot on the UK sales chart and covers of all the major magazines.

The album contains the two aforementioned singles plus three other tracks that have proved to be just as much hits over time, namely "Goldfinger", "Oh Yeah" and "Angel Interceptor", all songs for which it's hard to imagine a rock fan who hasn't heard and loved them.

Overall, the album immediately showcases the elements on which Ash's style will always be built: melodies that would sit well on any pop song, a direct, decisive but also composed sound, and vocals that keep the balance between the sweetness of the melodies and the adrenaline-fuelled charge of the sound, acting almost as a trait d'union between the two. Here it all comes together especially well, not least because the other songs have little to envy in those that became more famous, from the opening "Lose Control", "I'd Give You Anything" and the closing "Darkside Lightside", which form an ideal link back to "Trailer" in a more fully realised form, to "Let It Flow" and "Innocent Smile", which perfect the ability to combine more structured rock arrangements with immediate, inspired melodies, to "Gone The Dream" and "Lost In You", which capture well the trio's romantic, sentimental side.

But there's no getting around it: this is a record where the singles are also the best songs: "Goldfinger", thanks to the interplay between the guitar's ups and downs and the controlled rhythm, is the perfect portrait of just how much emotional intensity can come from the simple act of waiting for something; "Girl From Mars" carries a particular softness of melody and vocal timbre along with a more pronounced dynamism in the sound; "Kung Fu" is particularly energetic, but in a different way to "Trailer", thanks to a sonic structure built on cleanliness and a wealth of detail, especially rhythmically, making it impossible not to get swept up in while listening; "Oh Yeah" also has very dynamic arrangements, but a more controlled rhythm and a fuller sound, complete with well-placed string parts, and perfectly captures the experience of living with nostalgia rather than being overwhelmed by it, drawing positive energy from memories; "Angel Interceptor" is one of the poppiest moments in Ash's entire catalogue and also manages to carry a deeply inspired melody and a sound that's never static.

The general qualities of 1977 are the same ones found in countless other records by countless other bands, but here they're expressed with personality, variety and effectiveness. The quality level is high from start to finish, there are plenty of points of interest, and the stylistic fingerprint is instantly recognisable. Achieving all this on a debut album, and before even turning twenty, is a truly extraordinary feat.

Growing popularity, the arrival of Charlotte Hatherley and a difficult second album

The band's popularity keeps climbing, and Ash's name gets drawn into debates over what is or isn't britpop, given that they're from Britain and built around melodies and guitars. The distinctive vocal timbre and the melodic style itself can indeed be likened to the britpop movement, but what sets Ash apart from it is their sonic imprint. Indeed, even the groups considered grittier among the undeniably britpop acts, like Shed Seven or Northern Uproar, have a decidedly rounder sound, while that of the Northern Irish trio, even in its cleanest moments, remains dry, bordering on sharp.

In any case, Ash's popularity is high enough to land them a commission from director Danny Boyle to write the song that will serve as the theme for the film "A Life Less Ordinary", starring Ewan McGregor and Cameron Diaz. The song, sharing the same title, stands as one of the absolute high points of the band's catalogue and marks the debut of the four-piece line-up, with the arrival of the striking guitarist Charlotte Hatherley. Usually, Ash go for either a clean sound or a rougher one and stick with it for the whole song, but here they alternate between the two, with the intro and chorus belonging to the former and the verse to the latter. The degree of melodic openness shifts accordingly too, and in short, it feels like reliving everything Ash had done up to that point within a single song. The melodic inspiration and that signature vocal balance are at their absolute peak here too: this song is simply a gem of all Nineties alternative rock.

There are, then, every reason to expect a great new album from this refreshed lineup. Nu-Clear Sounds arrives in the autumn of 1998, and it's undoubtedly a solid piece of work, but not quite enough to fully meet the expectations of fans.

The problem is that the record as a whole lacks the immediacy of its predecessor, and that shortcoming isn't offset by other strengths. As we'll see later too, Ash are at their best when they manage to hit the mark on first listen, whereas here the result is a bit disorienting. It should be said that it still comes across as a good record, and that impression holds up even after many listens, but a heavy, dark sound and a melodic style that loses a bit of the band's usual pop stamp don't seem like the best choices. As we've seen, Ash had flirted with these traits before too, but in those songs there was the appeal of roughness and the charge of youth and spontaneity that, inevitably, can't be there now - not because the quartet isn't made up of young musicians, but because a band that has by now established itself can no longer have the same attitude as someone just starting out with a mad desire to take on the world. It's no coincidence that the best moments are the ones with the softer, cleaner sound and the more purely pop melodies, namely the fresh, sun-drenched "Wildsurf" and the romantic ballad "Aphrodite".

In general, the ballads, far more numerous than on the previous record, all come off well, not least because they don't simply copy one another, and it's interesting to note how effectively the four of them moved into territory that had, up to that point, been largely unexplored. Elsewhere on the record, they venture into further new territory, such as the electronic contamination on "Death Trip 21" or the particularly aggressive, almost melody-free rock of "Numbskull", but here the results are decidedly less convincing.

Nu-Clear Sounds can be seen as the product of a band having to adjust both to its renewed line-up and to having reached the status of a major, high-profile name. Granted, expanding the lineup was a deliberate choice, but there was nothing wrong in principle with bringing in a new member to broaden their horizons, and besides, given what the four of them managed to achieve afterwards, the original nucleus did very well to recruit Hatherley.

As for sales, here too they fall short of the previous record's results, but they still settle at a good level: a UK chart debut at number 7, followed by a gold certification. All things considered, it's a small step back that doesn't derail the band's career, which would already be relaunched to its best levels, both artistically and commercially, with the following album.

The relaunch and a further rise in popularity

Free All Angels arrives in the spring of 2001 and shows a band that has taken practically the opposite path from its previous work. The sound, in fact, is particularly clean and accessible, and the melodies have never been so open and immediate. This will remain the most easily listenable - and, why not, pop - version of Ash, but this record will struggle to leave the CD players of countless fans, not so much because of the traits mentioned above, but above all because of its sheer quality.

The cleanness of the sound doesn't mean it's slick or polished to a fault; rather, there's simply an ideal balance between rock authenticity and pop positivity. The melodies aren't just able to nail the listener from the very first listen - they're the product of genuinely fervent inspiration and would prove irresistible even to the most demanding fan. The vocals feature a much greater presence of harmonies between Wheeler and Hatherley in the choruses, and these are far better crafted than before. The variety of approaches from one track to the next is considerable, matched by an equally wide range of moods expressed.

"Shining Light" is a highly vital midtempo track that captures well the serenity of finally meeting the right partner; "Walking Barefoot" alternates between moments of great softness and others that are decidedly more energetic, evoking nostalgia for a summer romance that never managed to become something more lasting; "Burn Baby Burn" is all celebration and the urge to dance and sweat the whole time through. These are the three most famous and celebrated songs on the record - it's almost impossible that anyone reading this doesn't know them - and placed at the start, they immediately set an important tone for the whole work.

The remaining tracks also prove up to the task, especially a few genuinely gripping ballads, first and foremost "Sometimes", a purely electric track that lays bare, mercilessly, just how devastating it can be when a love story you believed would last a lifetime comes to an end. Then there are "Candy" and "There's A Star", with more elaborate arrangements given the presence of strings and keyboards, and a more upbeat mood. There are a couple of exceptions to this pop bloom: "Submission" picks up the heavy electronic contamination of "Death Trip 21" from the previous record and, needless to say, turns out a decidedly more satisfying and focused result, while "Shark" is pure rock power.

Every track would deserve a mention, but by now it's clear that Free All Angels is one of those records where everything is in the right place, not only in terms of form but, above all, in substance. It's hard to choose between this and 1977 as Ash's best album, but it's almost a given that these two records deserve the top spots in any ideal ranking.

Sales success is, unsurprisingly, high, with the number 1 spot on the charts secured right away, not least because the two lead singles are none other than "Shining Light" and "Burn Baby Burn", which couldn't fail to capture listeners' imaginations. At this point, Ash are at the absolute peak of their popularity, so they take the opportunity to release a best of collection with all the singles, plus a bonus CD featuring a wide selection of B-sides. We've already discussed how good the choice of singles was - the selection was almost always spot-on, save for a couple of tracks, namely the aforementioned "Numbskull" and a "Jesus Says" that truly has nothing of real interest to offer. Among the B-sides there are some solid ones, especially among the earlier ones, as is often the case, and the average quality is acceptable, though there's no great regret that one or more of them didn't make it onto an album. The anthology also features one previously unreleased track, "Envy", which doesn't make much of an impression.

The band spends the two years following the release of Free All Angels collecting awards and high chart placings for its various singles, and is relentlessly on tour across the world. And this tireless live activity will end up inspiring another shift in sound for their next studio work.

Meltdown arrives in the spring of 2004, produced by Foo Fighters producer Nick Raskulinecz, in the very same studio where Nirvana had recorded "Nevermind". These credentials alone suggest the sound has grown heavier again, but the differences from Nu-Clear Sounds are evident. First of all, the arrangements are more structured, and this is probably the record on which Ash pushed furthest in exploring instrumental harmonies and new ways of making the guitars interact with the rhythm section; moreover, the melodies have stayed as open and immediate as those on Free All Angels. In truth, the combination of these two elements initially throws listeners off - the record doesn't reach number 1, stalling at, so to speak, number 5 - and, sales results aside, it's genuinely not easy to get into these songs right away and fully appreciate them as they actually deserve. It takes a while, then, to realize that Meltdown is a great record, one that sits just below the two mentioned above, but only just.

The choruses are all irresistible, the melodic quality overall is very high and comes across all the better thanks to its interplay with the sound described above, and there's no shortage of interesting ideas, including in the songwriting itself. Particular standouts are "Orpheus", melodically among the most inspired in the band's entire catalogue and superbly developed thanks to the intricate instrumental break between the final two choruses; "Evil Eye", a perfect balance of different feelings in its mischievous, intriguing nature, capturing that moment when you know perfectly well you should stay away from something but just can't, and give in to it regardless of the consequences; and "Star Crossed", a super-romantic ballad in which the urge to completely surrender to the love of one's life pours out without restraint.

Charlotte's departure, the dip in inspiration, and the temporary farewell to the album format

The Meltdown period comes with an appendix a few months later: the release of Grey Will Fade, a solo record by Charlotte Hatherley. Stylistically it sits in light, measured pop-rock territory, with some good melodic ideas, especially on the title track and on the fairly successful single "Bastardo", plus a decent vocal sensibility. Nothing essential, but it's a pleasant listen. No one expects this solo outing to actually be a prelude to the guitarist leaving the band, yet after a 2005 spent touring the world as in previous years, the split becomes official in early 2006. There will be a very brief reunion in 2011 for the tenth-anniversary tour of Free All Angels; aside from that, Hatherley goes on to release two more solo albums that pass largely unnoticed, and temporarily joins various live projects, such as Client, KT Tunstall and Bat For Lashes. Since 2012 she has been working on a new solo project under the moniker Sylver Tongue, whose music she herself describes as "sci-fi dystopia". For now there's a 2012 EP with four tracks that live up to that description while still staying melodic, and overall they're of good quality. An album is expected to arrive sometime in 2015.

Ash then return to their original lineup, and in the meantime Tim and Mark relocate to New York. It's in the Big Apple that the fifth album is recorded, after the now-customary long stretch of touring and the split from Hatherley described above.

Twilight Of The Innocents arrives in spring 2007 and brings back a clean, light sound, once again setting aside heaviness and dark overtones. Above all, the album marks the start of a period in which the band's melodic inspiration, unfortunately, can no longer sustain its best levels, mainly in terms of consistency across a whole record. Some tracks still measure up, but they come across almost as exceptions within a broader picture of a band that can still hold its own very well, but without the sting it once had.

Specifically, the opening "I Started A Fire" has everything it needs to rank among Ash's best songs, with its melodic quality, overall drive, and balance of cleanness, emotion and vocal expressiveness. But after that, the rest of the album never quite reaches the best levels the band has hit over the course of its career. As said, these aren't bad songs, and the album is a pleasant listen, whether riding the wave of the opener into the following "You Can't Have It All" and "Blacklisted", or shifting into romantic ballad mode with "Polaris" and "End Of The World", or trying to craft a midtempo number with a final surge like "Palace Of Excess", or keeping a steady pace with "Shadows", or leaning into epic attitude on the closing title track. There are also some undeniable merits here: for one, you can hear the desire to broaden the sonic and rhythmic palette a bit, despite having one fewer musician than on the previous two albums, and Tim Wheeler also explores new vocal approaches; there's also greater variety in the sounds on offer.

It would therefore be ungenerous to criticize an album like this, but the Ash capable of truly drawing you in and moving you are a different beast from this. Sales, in fact, reward the band less than in the past, partly because by this point freely downloading albums off the internet has become far more widespread.

Precisely in light of how the relationship between music fans and record releases is evolving, Ash announce they're abandoning the album format in favor of a new way of putting out songs. The trio's reasoning is that by now people care more about individual tracks than about albums as a whole, so Ash decide to go down that road. Over the course of 2009, it becomes clear what this declaration of intent actually means: starting in October of that year, the Northern Irish band will release a single every two weeks for a full year. The experiment, called A-Z Series, ends up comprising 26 singles in total, plus a number of B-sides, and is accompanied by just as many gigs, with Ash visiting a different British city each time in alphabetical order, from Aldershot to Zeldor. The singles themselves aren't titled alphabetically, but they are still labelled in that order (for instance, single A is "True Love 1980", single B is "Joy Kicks Darkness", and so on). Fans get the chance to follow the release schedule either via download or by receiving a 7" each time. The songs are later collected onto two CDs featuring both the singles and some of the B-sides.

It's not easy to judge a work so unusual in both scope and release format. Scope here means not just a high number of songs, but also a sonic variety more pronounced than ever before. There's really a bit of everything in these tracks: an attempt to update the Ash sound to the then-fashionable trend of danceable songs built around so-called punk-funk ("Return Of White Rabbit"), synthesizers taking on a very prominent role ("True Love 1980"), a particularly pronounced sonic crescendo ("Traces"), a rawness harsher than ever, offset by a vocal tone reaching higher pitches than ever before ("The Dead Disciples"), a nod to New Order ("Space Shot"); and the boldness to offer up an instrumental running over 10 minutes ("Sky Burial").

All these new elements alternate with other songs that instead pick up on things already done in the past, again across a wide range: driving melodic rock, more restrained rock, punk attitude, ballads, all realized either with the classic guitar-bass-drums trio or with the help of other instruments.

Ultimately, the record doesn't offer a sense of cohesion, but it's clear that Ash have genuinely stuck to their intent of focusing on crafting individual songs, making the most of the greater creative freedom this way of working allows. Unfortunately, the criticisms leveled at the previous album apply to many of these tracks too, with the added issue that, in some cases, the melodic style and the arrangement choices don't quite gel, and when that happens, the listen feels a bit disorienting. Most of the songs sit at the same level of pleasantness described for the previous album, and since there are so many in total, the ones that actually deserve attention and come off as fully successful are more numerous than the single standout on Twilight Of The Innocents: "Dionysian Urge" boasts an excellent build, grabbing attention with an irresistible guitar arpeggio before launching into a perfect melody in both verse and chorus; the same goes for "Insects", which starts out looking like a ballad only to kick into high gear in the chorus, settle into a midtempo verse, and then accelerate again, here too with a melody worthy of the best Ash; "Summer Snow" rides a lovely, steady, effective crescendo and a particularly strong vocal performance, and for once the synths lending a hand in the chorus don't feel out of place; "Carnal Love" and "Change Your Name" are classic ballads, the former with an electric, stripped-down sound, the latter semi-acoustic but more structured, both simple in a way that puts everything exactly where it needs to be to inevitably pull the listener in. Finally, it's hard not to notice that, generally speaking, the further you get into the tracklist, the better the songs get — not strictly in order, but at least as an overall trend.

Ash deserve credit for dreaming up an experiment like this before anyone else, and for the fact that no other band at such a high level of popularity has ever attempted anything similar, even afterwards, not to mention for the more-than-satisfying average quality on display. Granted, at that point it was hard to hope they'd ever again manage a run of songs that were great from first to last, but their career was by then nearing the twenty-year mark and had been particularly intense, so this dip in inspiration was entirely understandable. What remained to be seen was whether the future held a return to the album format or some other new idea for releasing their music.

The return to the album format and to the basic elements of their style

The creative effort involved had nonetheless been considerable, so no one could expect new, unreleased material to arrive any time soon. In the meantime, the band keeps its name warm with the release of a new best of in 2011 and a covers mini-album in 2012, the twentieth anniversary of their formation. The covers were all already finished, and some had even already been used as B-sides for the "A-Z Series" singles. Little Infinity, as the collection is called, is an interesting work simply because the covers are all well done, and the style of the various artists and bands being revisited, from the Beatles to ABBA, from the Strokes to David Bowie, is perfectly adapted to Ash's now well-established sound, with the reinterpretations all sounding very spontaneous and natural, never forced. Worth noting in particular is the semi-acoustic version of the Strokes' "What Ever Happened".

The next step isn't taken by Ash, but by frontman Tim Wheeler, who releases his first solo album, Lost Domain, in November 2014.

Wheeler, who had previously worked outside Ash only on an album of Christmas songs with Emmy The Great in 2011, was pushed toward this debut by a tragic event — the loss of his father to Alzheimer's — and the album fully reflects the state of mind of an adult son watching a parent gradually and inexorably succumb to the disease. The melodic style is instantly recognizable, as is the voice, though the latter, understandably, is far more emotional and heartfelt than usual. The musical framework, however, is profoundly different from Ash's: rhythmically, it never picks up speed, which is hardly surprising given the subject matter, while in terms of sound, it leans heavily on piano and orchestral elements, with guitars appearing only occasionally and never taking the lead role.

The album is beautiful and moving: the sonic choices are spot-on, the vocal expressiveness is out of the ordinary, and above all, the melodies are gorgeous from first to last. Not since 2004's Meltdown had Wheeler found such consistency across an entire record, and in this case the adverse circumstances truly pushed him to bring out the best in himself. Worth noting too is the album's structure, a genuine chronology of events: starting with the realization of the impending decline of someone so dear, through the mounting anguish as the inevitable draws closer, to the solemn, devastating moment of death - which, however, arrives already halfway through the record rather than at the end as one might expect, since the second half is devoted to the desire to leave the loss behind and move forward, without forgetting those who are gone but aware that life goes on. Lost Domain is truly a great record.

2015 marks Ash's return to the album format. Kablammo! arrives in May and gives us back a band at its best, with songs that have everything needed to thrill fans and enthusiasts just as much as the most celebrated singles of the past. The reason is very simple: essentially, the trio have realized that they can attempt all the sonic expansion they like, but nothing will suit them as well as sticking to purely rock elements, aside from the odd touch of strings and piano on the ballads.

There isn't a single weak moment on this record, something that, as we've seen, hadn't happened since "Meltdown". At most there are a couple of songs that don't hit on the first listen but do on the second or third, like the epic "Moondust", but the point is that while on the first spin the listener will simply note that Ash are still around, after a while they'll add that the band are back in a form that has nothing to envy from 1996 or the 2001-2004 period. As in those golden years, the use of a limited set of instruments doesn't mean a lack of imagination and variety: on Kablammo! we find pop-punk in the opening one-two of "Cocoon"/"Let's Ride", romanticism in "For Eternity", raw, unchecked energy in "Go! Fight! Win!", soft rock in "Hedonism", even instrumental moments with "Evel Knievel". All thoroughly solid songs, as already noted, but we also can't pretend there aren't two true gems that stand out above all the rest: "Machinery" has nothing particularly special about its structure, but boasts an absolutely extraordinary, irresistible melody in both verse and chorus, with Wheeler singing it with rare vocal expressiveness; "Free" explores the epic side of Ash's style and does so with a powerfully emotional charge, thanks to particularly well-judged arrangement choices and, once again, the melodic and vocal quality.

One could be snide about how Kablammo! shows that Ash are hardly blessed with eclecticism, given they had to go back to the basic concepts of their own style to be at their best again, but that's the kind of talk from people who don't listen to music with passion and heart. Those who do will only be happy about a comeback of this calibre.

Daring and a desire to vary

Three years pass before the release of Islands. After returning to the basic elements of their style on the previous record, one had to wonder whether Wheeler and co. had in some way renounced the desire for stylistic expansion shown between 2009 and 2010, and this new album was the perfect opportunity to answer that question. Well, the trio make it clear they've renounced nothing, releasing their most varied work to date, one that revisits everything done so far, leaving out virtually nothing, while also offering something new.

Islands, which marks the trio's return to Infectious, represents, for most of its runtime, a perfect summary of what Ash have done across more than twenty years of activity. There's rough, direct rock (the first single "Buzzkill"), the kind suited to big-show singalongs (the opening "True Story"), sweet romanticism ("Don't Need Your Love"), purely electric sounds geared more towards hi-fi ("Somersault"), and others tinged with keyboards and danceable rhythms ("Confessions In The Pool"), alongside further tracks that revisit the above traits with greater cleanliness and dynamism in the arrangements.

We then find three songs that do things the band has never done before: "Did Your Love Burn Out?" is built on a constant alternation between a soft, sentimental side and another rooted in disapproval and a desire for vindication, with no chorus but with the two different verses chasing each other throughout the track; in the two closing songs, "Is It True?" and "Incoming Waves", we instead find an interplay between guitars and keyboards entirely new for Ash, since, for the first time, neither element prevails over the other, with both instead contributing equally to building the sound.

Moving from description to judgment, the album is marked by solid consistency throughout its runtime. Just as on the previous record, there isn't a single misstep, and all the songs are strong both in quality and in listenability. Ash have never been, nor should they be, a band behind whom one has to unpack complex conceptual reasoning, but have always wanted to churn out fresh, immediate songs that invite the listener to sing along and to listen again and again. Here that mission is perfectly accomplished, and the only criticism one could level at the trio is the lack of at least one track able to rival the band's past high points: "Kablammo!" offered at least a couple of those, whereas here we don't feel we can place any song in the band's all-time pantheon.

In short, on what is the most daring record of their career, Ash, without exactly pulling off a miracle, have managed to craft a work with everything it takes to deliver plenty of enjoyable listens to fans and to anyone who appreciates the union of energy and melody under the banner of quality and inspiration.

The last photo is by Alex Lake

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