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Free All Angels

Released:
Apple Music Spotify
Tracks
  1. Walking Barefoot
  2. Shining Light
  3. Burn Baby Burn
  4. Candy
  5. Cherry Bomb
  6. Submission
  7. Someday
  8. Pacific Palisades
  9. Shark
  10. Sometimes
  11. Nicole
  12. There’s a Star
  13. World Domination

Alternative versions

Japanese Edition

The Japanese edition was released on April 18, 2001 through Sony Records, it includes the original thirteen track album and two bonus tracks. The album comes with a picture sleeve, lyric booklet and obi-strip.

  1. Warmer Than Fire
  2. Gabriel

European Tour Edition

This two disc version of “Free All Angels” was released in Europe in October 2001. It includes the original thirteen track album on disc one along with two bonus tracks. Disc two is made up of B-sides, acoustic tracks, and music videos. It features different artwork to the UK version and is also notable for featuring the French sung version of “Candy”.

Disc 1 bonus tracks

  1. Warmer Than Fire
  2. Gabriel

Disc 2

  1. Skullfull of Sulphur
  2. So the Story Goes
  3. The Sweetness of Death by the Obsidian Knife
  4. Melon Farmer (Live)
  5. Nocturne
  6. Stay in Love Forever
  7. Thinking About You
  8. Candy (French version)
  9. Shining Light (Acoustic)
  10. Burn Baby Burn (Acoustic)
  11. Candy (Video)
  12. Sometimes (Video)

US Edition

The US version was released on June 25, 2002 through Kinetic Records. This version contains the original thirteen track album and a bonus track, “So the Story Goes”. A remix version of “Burn Baby Burn” appears on the album and was released as a single. The first 75,000 copies of the record included a free DVD that featured a documentary on the group, the UK videos for the albums singles and a video collage for three bonus tracks.

Disc 1 bonus tracks

  1. So the Story Goes

Bonus DVD

  1. World Domination Documentary
  2. 13th Floor (Audio track with animation)
  3. Coasting (Audio track with animation)
  4. So the Story Goes (Audio track with animation)
  5. Burn Baby Burn (Video)
  6. Sometimes (Video)
  7. Candy (Video)
  8. There’s a Star (Video)
  9. Burn Baby Burn (Live from Tokyo Blitz film)
  10. Kung Fu (Live from Tokyo Blitz film)

Release details

  • Label: Infectious Records
  • Catalogue number: INFECT100
  • Formats: CD, 12” vinyl, 12” clear & yellow splatter vinyl (2022 re-issue), Digital
  • Charts: UK: 1
  • Producer: Owen Morris

Info

Ash’s third album Free All Angels was once again produced by Owen Morris and was recorded in Spain and London. The name of the album is taken from a T-shirt worn by a Hells Angel. The album reached number one in the UK album chart and is also certified Platinum by the BPI. It also enjoyed worldwide success reaching #20 in Norway, #28 in Australia, #32 in New Zealand, #43 in Austria, #58 in Sweden, and #121 in France.

The album features the Ash Video Mixer v1.0 which installs on your computer and allows you to create videos for any track on the album, singles from the album included bonus video clips for use with this video mixer.

On September 16th, 2022 the band remastered and re-issued the album on limited edition clear and yellow splatter vinyl.

Quotes

Tim on the writing of Free All Angels:

I went back to Northern Ireland where I knew I’d written my best songs before and I tried to find what I’d had there that had worked for me before. I got into a routine of writing every day, tried to get a song every day even if I didn’t think it was good. It helped getting away from the distractions of touring and London. By constantly writing it freed me from the pressure of feeling that every song I wrote had to be a “great” song or a hit, so the writing came more naturally.

We had fun getting together in the old derelict cottage where we’d started Ash. It was a good contrast to the madness of the previous few years. It seemed healthy setting up our own gear for the first time in a few years. I remember doing demos in my parents house too, drum kit set up in a bedroom, guitar amps in another bedroom and the bass amp in the bathroom. My Mum always cooked for us when we rehearsed every Saturday for most of our teenage years, it was good getting back to that.

Rick on the recording of the album:

We actually did a lot of the album near Bath in the west country at Van Morrison’s studio. It was there that we did Shining Light which we actually paid for ourselves, as the record company didn’t think it was a strong enough comeback single. The things you have to do for creative control… Bath was also where Owen brought about one of my more interesting haircuts. I think we had a few more ales than usual that night. Owen has always taken an un-healthy interest in my appearance.

Mark on the inspiration for the albums title:

It’s a Hells Angels slogan. Around that time we used those guys for security and pit crew supervision. They are really good at looking after crowds and making sure local crew don’t get heavy handed which can be a big problem.

Tim looking back on the album on its tenth anniversary in 2011:

Recently I listened to it for the first time in years and I really enjoyed it and felt proud, it’s a really strong collection of songs. It was the first album that we made entirely using Pro Tools software. Nu-Clear Sounds was a mix of tape and Pro Tools. Some of the performances on Free All Angels feel a little bit rigid because we were testing the editing powers of Pro Tools a bit too much. But overall it sounds like it’s full of energy and melody which is what we wanted.

Tim speaking to Noisey in 2015:

It’s not quite as noisy as the previous two, but it’s up-tempo and rocking. Alan Moulder mixed it, so it has a slightly more posh sound. I think it has a great bunch of songs, a great bunch of singles on it. Some of our defining songs are on there. It was kind of a hard time after the Britpop scene fell away, pretty much all of the UK indie bands were flopping with their follow-up records and then getting dropped. If this record hadn’t been a success it probably would’ve been the end of our career. I knew I had to get back into the pop style of writing, like I did on 1977, because I thought that is what we hadn’t pushed enough on Nu-Clear Sounds. That was the one thing that was missing, definitely.

Rick McMurray during the Tim Burgess Twitter listening party for Free All Angels in May 2020:

We did a lot of writing and demoing at the Fortress rehearsal studios in London, a legendary den of iniquity where Swervedriver had their own studio.

Owen Morris was back at the controls for this one, this time from the start. His vibe was so infectious. He just amplified our positivity about the album we were making. We went into the studio believing we were making the biggest album of our lives. We felt we were on a mission at this point to make the best album of our career; if it was to be our last we were going to go out with a bang. That was our fuel.

Charlotte Hatherley during the same Tim Burgess Twitter listening party for Free All Angels in May 2020:

I remember this No 1 party so well. Mark was crying in the toilets and I was like, why? I didn’t full grasp that this was a “comeback” cos I didn’t have the shadow of 1977 to contend with and everything felt huge and ground breaking to me.