Ash prove they are invincible with singles collection.
It’s a journey of superhuman proportion that starts in a garage in Downpatrick and ends in world domination. It blazes a trail through post-grunge, Britpop and metal-rock noisecore but remains attached to the umbilical cord of bubblegum pop. It was nearly cut short by a brief excursion into rock n’ roll clichés, but emerged, lessons learnt, to stage a second leg. It’s an adventure undertaken by cartoon superhero’s with questionable haircuts and prodigious songwriting powers.
For those who had their Ray Bans on when Free All Angels exploded last year, Ash have made a blinding comeback. Gone are the growing pains of 1998’s Nu-Clear Sounds album that saw them try to turn themselves into venomous rock n’ roll hoodlums. In its place is a return to the melancholic sentiments, the killer choruses and the buzzsaw hooks that turned Ash into guitar pop hero’s. Except these days, they’re embellishing their pop paeans with stringy atmospherics and Burt Bacharach samples - and they’ve got a landslide of hit singles, awards and sold out tours to show for it. All this from a band who were teetering on the brink of bankruptcy just two years ago.
It’s been a hell of a resurrection. Of the 19 singles notched up on this collection, every one is sublime. Not all possess the anthemic, bittersweet appeal of “Oh Yeah”, or the searing pop-punk frenzy of “A Life Less Ordinary”, but even “Jack Names the Planets”, their debut single, is melodic enough to prop up the windscreen balladeering of “Sometimes”. In fact, Ash’s latest material is distinguishable only by its more eclectic approach, thus proving that the only type of single ‘tiny’ Tim Wheeler knows how to write is a titanic hit.
Precociously talented and impossibly pretty, Ash are the stuff of a pop svengali’s dreams. Simply put, they have every quality pop requires from its finest exponents; the wistful vignettes of Tim Wheeler, the technicoloured strings, the tempestuous guitar-snarl of Charlotte Hatherley; that mowhawk.
More than that, though, they have impeccable timing. Ash made their comeback at precisely the point when pop was being given a mauling by the manufactured croonings of a clutch of dead-eyed karaoke kids. Wielding their sheer songwriting ability like a sonic lightsabre, our cartoon superhero’s tore through the darkness and fulfilled their potential as the unashamed saviours of pop.
Despite their obviously populist leanings, Ash are capable of revoking the gritty garage-punk rent boys of formative years. Cosmic Debris, a bonus CD of B-sides that accompanies Intergalactic Sonic 7”s, proves the band have got blistering punk tunes to rival any of the new garage bands. “13th Floor” is raucous and ravaged, while “No Place to Hide”, is a call-to-arms for an old-fashioned punk rock freak out. They might be professors of pop-rock, but crucially, Ash carry the Weezer gene, the one that makes them want to play a wild card from time to time without flunking out entirely. Nu-Clear Sounds might have been a commercial disaster, but it spawned “Numbskull”, and “Jesus Says” - both rip-roaring, guitar-driven-metal-stompers.
This isn’t the sound of a one (man)-Wheeler show either. The few tracks here penned by Charlotte, Mark and Rick are enough to suggest there is more than one talented songwriter in Ash. McMurray’s “Stormy Waters” is a dreamy uber-romantic ballad which positively quivers with emotion - surprising from Ash’s self-professed Geek. “Taken Out”, a Charlotte-penned punk classic, curls its lip up in a Chrissie Hynde-esque sneer, while Mark Hamilton’s “I Need Somebody plunders the piano and brass section of the school instruments cupboard to come off like a heavily-pierced Badly Drawn Boy stumbling through a West End musical.
In the last year, Ash have woven their ay into the fabric of rock n’ roll myth. They’ve taken the piss out of themselves and others. They’ve initiated Starsailor slagging sessions in concert, burnt a pile of Westlife CDs in protest at the increasingly manufactured state of Irish music and filmed a short horror movie called Slashed, in which Tim and Charlotte play lovers, fuelling rumours of a real-life affair. It’s this sending up of the rock n’ roll game that puts them head and shoulders above the average rock band.
By surviving a recent road accident unscathed, Ash have provided us with the perfect metaphor. Here are a band who take whatever fate throws at them and emerge with a grin, ready to take on the world once more. Suddenly the biblical imagery that frames most of Tim’s experiences (“She is my Christ, she is my redeemer,” on the blissful “Stay In Love Forever” makes total sense. Having pulled off a resurrection, Ash are utterly invincible.
Rating: 5/5