‘Free All Angels’ by Ash

Ash are a funny old band. They’re a band with real strengths, but they never seem quite sure of what to do with them. Throughout their career, they’ve alternated between writing outstanding pop songs, and slightly middling rock – it’s as though they’ve never considered the pop stuff legitimate.

‘Free All Angels’ saw them swing in the pop direction, and as such, it’s an excellent album. Tracks like ‘Walking Barefoot’ and ‘Shining Light’ may seem lightweight to some, but they’re incredibly well written infectious tracks that you can’t fail to enjoy. From there on in, the album is sprinkled with tracks that maintain the standard – ‘Submission’, ‘Someday’, ‘Sometimes’ and ‘There’s A Star’ in particular. Of the lighter stuff, only ‘Candy’ doesn’t quite measure up – as a song, it’s fine, but the Bacharach sample doesn’t sit very comfortably with it, and the song as a whole would probably have worked better standing on its own two feet.

Elsewhere, the band aim for heaver territory with less impressive results. ‘Burn Baby Burn’ is good and ‘Cherry Bomb’, ‘Pacific Palisades’ and ‘World Domination’ are fine, but ‘Shark’ and ‘Nicole’ add nothing to their surroundings.

None-the-less, the album as a whole works well, and stands the test of time comfortably.