Charlotte Hatherley is used to being thrown in at the deep end. For her first appearance as Ash‘s new recruit, she played to 10,000 people in a V headline slot. Then, her first slice of recording with the band was the troubled, drug-addled, writer‘s block-in-spades Nu-Clear Sounds, after which the band bankrolled Free All Angels themselves, standing nervously in the face of impending bankruptcy.
We all know what happened next; Ash sold more records than they‘d ever done previously and bankruptcy seemed about as likely as Rik Waller competing in the men‘s 100 metres. Of course, picking her moment precariously perfect, Charlotte Hatherley has chosen to release her debut solo album just a few months after Ash have sold another bucket load of records with Meltdown. And, once again, she‘s swimming her way to safety…
Now, Grey Will Fade isn‘t the original, groundbreaking, innovative album that‘s gonna re-imagine the way you think about music. But - and you get the impression this is exactly what Hatherley has intended iT‘s dumb-as-ya-like, sun-stroking indie. Hatherley has long proved her worth in Ash; before she joined, they were little more than a power-pop trio with a fine-line in adolescent choruses but she was instrumental in their revamp to indie-rock champions. And, of course, they was the small matter that she looked fucking ace too. Here, the skull-thumping rock‘n‘roll is toned down in favour of mellower reference points. “Kim Wilde” sounds like Blondie trading in their NY ‘tood for a breezy road trip, “Down” is mellow, sweet lounge-core and “Summer” is driving, tuneful indie-pop.
It doesn’t flow as seamlessly as it should, though. “Why You Wanna?” resembles a sub-indie Ash cast-off, whilst “Bastardo” is the quintessential sound of a solo album (i.e having no-one else around to say “No!”). For the most part though, Grey Will Fade shows that there‘s more than one capable songwriter in Ash. A little more of her riffed-up gut-punches would‘ve been nice, but, Hatherley proves again that, in at the deep end, she‘s a better swimmer than most.
Niall Doherty