Ash have been at this pop song writing malarkey for over three decades, and to be fair, back in ’94 they were pretty bloody good at it to begin with. But, over time, they’ve ebbed and flowed, dabbled with stardom, but consistently released excellent records. They have always stood by their tried and tested style that has served them so well, and now in 2025, with ‘ad astra’ they’ve blasted off into the ether on another guitar pop-infested melody space raid with an album that’s full to bursting with style and class. It’s a record that flows superbly with memorable blasts of loud guitar pop, proper earworms huge guest slots adding to the quality and maintaining that decades-long mantra of always be better than the previous release.
From the opening big budget grand lift off, they rip into… ‘Which One do you want’ maybe not so much rip but gently ease you into it whilst the after burners settle down. This is a marathon not a sprint.
Sounding like prime time Smiths in the overall feel of the songwriting, with the big strumming acoustic guitars layering the song through verse, chorus, verse, chorus and big layers of goodness. It could and should be a hit. Enter Graham Coxon for a champion thunderous riff on ‘Fun Prople’, what a hook, when I say hook I mean hooks a bloody great big Jaws catching Hook!. The sound is huge, the chorus is a chant along earworm and the sound of a band having an absolute ball and knowing they are bloody good at this.
The tunes come thick and fast, and long-time fans will be delighted with the fact it sounds like classic Ash but also never sounds dated or just ‘clocking in’. It really is excellent songs, superbly written and performed and produced to perfection. Guitar pop par excellence, no question about it.
There are lush sweeping melodies at times married with harder driving anthemic songs covering every inch of what a long player should do. It’s a journey of discovery, twisting and turning, never sounding ordinary or predictable but comfortably familiar, and to think they’ve been at this for over three decades and are delivering albums this bloody good is champion and should be well championed.
Be it the thumping, more dreamy journey of ‘Deadly Love’ or the all-out rocker with a huge grin leading the party with ‘Jump In The Line’ or the gentler string-laden ‘My Favourite Ghost’ Ash do it better than most.
With a dozen tracks that ebb and flow, lifting you up and leading you to reflect, they save some of the best til latter on as ‘Dehumanized’ which has all the hallmarks of an absolute Ash banger buried deep in this record. Be it a singles band or an album band, these three do bot,h and when these get added to the set list, they won’t sound out of place at all.
Their mucca from Blur is back to help put a full stop on this most excellent album. Don’t just take my word for it, go and pick up your own copy and come back and thank me later, be it a silver copy or an indy retailer colour or special limited artwork Ash have gone for broke on this on,e and it looks and sounds like a band loving life and making some of the best music they’ve ever done. No easy task, Buy it!
Buy Here
Author: Dom Daley
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