Where exactly is it that Ash want to be? Maybe it doesn’t matter, they are on borrowed time after all, back from the brink, written off commercially in the late 90s and a sweaty coke-flecked hair’s width away from being declared bankrupt. Nonetheless they continued to be eaten from the inside out by a rock ‘n’ roll myth that maybe they didn’t fit, careering haphazardly across Planet Cliché. Of course that was all consigned to history by 2001’s mainstream-smooching, bubblegum success ‘Free All Angels’. Now it seems Tim Wheeler is taking no more chances and is willing to lurch in any old direction just to be liked, with inevitably mixed results.
This is a likable album, there is a quality threshold that he wouldn’t dare fall below. But a consequence of this pop band that he’s moulded Ash into is that the charm they exhibited early on by just putting their heads down and rushing the bullseye is lost. But then some would argue that was the case by the time they got to their first full-length record, ‘1977’. It’s clear by track one, ‘Meltdown’, that Tim Wheeler Business Man wasn’t going to let the current trend for 70s rock solos and 80s rock garishness, and the opportunities they present, pass him by. It just brings out the Sum 41 in them though on tracks like ‘Out If The Blue’. And the tasteless cover art is perhaps a step too far.
But for a guy who can’t even claim singing as a certifiable strength, he can sure write a sing-along. And this is what really pulls the album back. ‘Starrcrossed’ is actually a drop of pure ear-honey which could have dripped straight out of the first Weezer album. ‘Renegade Cavalcade’ and ‘Won’t Be Saved’ are made from similar stuff. And the twinkley head-shaking ‘Evil Eye’, while irrefutably retaining some of that rock posturing, really kicks out the summer jams and pushes Charlotte’s candy-coated irremissibility onto the pedestal she deserves. If you were looking for one key reason for Ash’s continued success look no further. So they live to see another day. If that were such a surprise it might be worth shouting about.