Twilight of the Innocents

Released: July 02, 2007

Tracks

Alternative versions

iTunes Deluxe Edition

Pre-orders through the iTunes Music Store included the original 12 track album and the following as tracks 13-15.

New Tattoo
Making of Documentary (Part One)
Making of Documentary (Part Two)

Japanese Edition

The Japanese release was a two CD set released on Sony Music. The first CD contains the original 12 track album plus one bonus track “Saskia”. While CD 2 contains 12 live tracks recorded on the bands “Higher Education” UK tour in February 2007.

Disc 1 bonus tracks

Saskia

Disc 2

Release details

Label: Infectious Records
Catalogue number: 2564698565
Formats: CD, 2x 12” vinyl, Digital
Charts: UK: 32
Producer: Tim Wheeler
Recorded: Atomic Heart Studios

Info

In 2006, Ash bought the lease for a recording studio in New York which they called Atomic Heart Studios, and set about recording the follow up to 2004’s “Meltdown”. The album marked the bands first release since returning to its original line-up, after Charlotte Hatherley left the band the previous year.

The band recorded demos for 27 songs and recorded 14. The songs have a substantially different sound from the Californian rock of “Meltdown” and a more “tight 70s guitar band sound”, and less of a polished sound that their previous albums had. The album was produced by Tim Wheeler, and mixed by Michael Brauer. String sections for “Polaris” and “Twilight of the Innocents” were recorded with a 20 piece orchestra in Los Angeles.

The title of this album is thought to be a play on Friedrich Nietzsche’s philosophical work “Twilight of the Idols”. This itself was in turn a play on words of the Wagner composition “Twilight of the Gods”.

Quotes

Tim Wheeler told Kerrang magazine upon the albums release:

We’d gone back to being a three piece without Charlotte [Hatherley], and it was the first album we’d produced ourselves. That was a big challenge. I’m so proud of how it turned out. We made it in our own studio as well, which we put together ourselves in New York. The real crowning achievement of the whole thing for me is the final track. It was written in a way that was completely unlike anything we’d ever done and it was made using a computer, recording in sections and then cutting them up and moving them around. I love how it came out somehow sounding organic. I think I’ve really started to find my voice on the vocals on the album. I’ve found a new strength to it. This is the start of a new time for us really.

Tim Wheeler speaking to Mosh Cam in 2016 about deciding to go on without guitarist Charlotte Hatherley after Meltdown:

“We were both going in a slightly different direction at the time, and she was just starting to develop her solo career. I guess when we were making Meltdown, a lot of the time she was away working on her own solo record. I think that was something that she really wanted to explore and we needed full commitment in the band. I also think she’s a hard person to replace. It would take a very special person to replace her, so I was like ‘Okay. I’m just going to work hard’.” We were really on the same level as guitarists. If there was any idea that I had, and if I thought I was too busy singing to play, Charlotte could just pick it up and do it. It was a real dream come true for me… and her vocals added a new dimension to the band. Also live, she’s such a cool presence as well.”

Tim Wheeler looking back at the lack of label support for the album in a February 2020 interview with Stereoboard:

That came out as the record industry was in a big crisis… losing so much income with CD sales falling off a cliff because of downloading. Labels were dropping lots of bands. It was the last album of our contract and the label had to pay more money for each album, that was the way our deal was set up. We were an expensive band to keep around so they were ready to let us go if it wasn’t a big success. “Polaris” was starting to get a bit of radio play but didn’t get a Radio One A-List and that was the point where they pulled funding for promoting the album.

We were worried about the future. We’d been on this cycle of album tour album tour, so started feeling ‘let’s do something different next time’ and announced it as our last album. There were a lot of negative moves going on at that time, like going back to a three piece, leaving our record contract, uncertainty about what was going on in the music industry. That was a very hard time.