Ash
Meltdown

THE REVIEW

Awaiting the release of the new "Twilight Of The Innocents" coming out in July (already teased by the singles "I Started A Fire" and "You Can't Have It All"), let's focus on the Ash of 2004, who delivered a good album titled "Meltdown." The album marked a clear shift from the previous "Free All Angels," which was dominated by pop sounds (not surprisingly the album of their international explosion, with hits like "Burn Baby Burn," "Candy," "Sometimes" and "Shining Light"), offering a greater aggressiveness of guitars and a more powerful sound impact combined with less of a search for a catchy chorus (this last characteristic, honestly, has not - as we will see - completely disappeared). Moreover, this is the last work of the Irish group with the talented and beautiful guitarist Charlotte Hatherley, now launched as a solo artist (after debuting a couple of years ago with "Grey Will Fade," her new solo project "The Deep Blue" has just come out) and definitively leaving the lineup after ten years.

The title track, as well as the opener, kicks off the album with a nice blast of aggressive guitars and not exactly sugary lyrics ("Revolution/we're the solution"), and introduces us to the first "official" single, the frenetic "Orpheus" (the first release, only available for download, was "Clones," another very aggressive track). "Evil Eye" resurrects the old, beloved quest for the perfect pop-rock track that has occupied Ash for a decade: the song is the one in the batch that most resembles the "old" sound. "Starcrossed" is a very radio-friendly electric ballad, not coincidentally a small classic from the group. "Out Of The Blue" only falls short of having a particularly striking chorus, but it’s still listenable. It’s worth pausing on "Renegade Cavalcade," which starts with a vaguely threatening intro to explode into a whirlwind of guitars and a hyper-melodic refrain branded with the Ash mark (listen with the volume up to the bridge, truly aggressive and incisive). "Detonator" slightly leans towards late '80s hard rock sounds but maintains the Irish quartet's trademark. "On A Wave" can be dismissed as filler, while "Won't Be Saved" is the other pop-oriented track of the album; these two songs lead us to the finale of "Vampire Love," where you can feel the (indeed declared) metal influence that then struck the group, among frantic guitar riffs and a solo admittedly a bit exaggerated but undoubtedly valid and effective.

An album that maintains a medium-high writing quality, but does not possess particularly high-quality peaks; nevertheless, the ability of Ash remains in crafting enjoyable albums that are, as in this case, objectively fun and incisive. Until next time.