Fresh from a triumphant homecoming at
Radio 1’s One Big Weekend in Derry the band are confirmed
for California’s Coachella festival, Ireland’s
Oxygen , T4’s Pop Beach and The Carling Reading & Leeds
Weekend with label mates The Darkness… and that’s
not to mention their full UK tour which runs throughout May
and June.
Meltdown is the first album release since
their poppier 2001release ‘Free All Angels’ which
saw Ash hit the number one spot and win numerous awards including
Q’s single of the year for ‘Burn Baby Burn’.
Amazingly, Meltdown manages not to be overshadowed by it’s
predecessor and Ash have returned with an album that’s
choc-a-block with energetic riffs and summer rock anthems.
Title Track opener, ‘Meltdown’,
oozes the frustration felt by Tim after joining the February
peace marches where 'you go on a walk with two million people
and it doesn't seem to make a difference', sentiments perfecty
expressed in the lyrics: ‘I think, my head, my head
is gonna explode, I think my head is gonna explode yeah.
I think my brain is gonna overload, I think my head is gonna
overload’.
‘ Orpheus’, released 3/5/04, is the perfect summer companion and
is best served blasting from your car with the windows open and the wind in your
hair. Former download only single ‘Clones’ keeps the energy levels
up mid way through the album and is the proud owner of some of the best riffs
on the record.
The pace drops slightly with ‘Starcross’d’ seeing the band
show their more tender, chilled side fleetingly before we’re thrown back
into the mix with ‘Out of the Blue’.
The high energy gems of the album’s beginning are more than matched by
its end and in ‘Vampire Love’, taken from the Shaun of the Dead
soundtrack (on which Ash collaborate with a certain Chris Martin for a cover
of The Buzzcocks’ ‘Everybody's Happy Nowadays’), Ash make
certain they go out on top.
Recorded in the LA studio which has spawned such classics as Nivarna’s
Nevermind, and produced by, Queens of the Stone Age & Foo Fighters producer
Nick Rasculinecz, ‘Meltdown’ lives up to expectations and if you’re
looking for summer vibes to thrash around to then you’ve come to the
right place.
Ash, ‘Meltdown’ tour
dates:
25/05 Leeds University Union
27/05 Liverpool Academy
28/05 Hall for Cornwall Truro
30/05 Carling Apollo Hammersmith
31/05 Carling Academy Birmingham
01/06 Carling Academy Bristol
03/06 University Oxford (sold out)
05/06 Manchester University (sold out)
07/06 Northumbria University
Jude Stone
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