Ash – Race the Night – Album Review
by Killian Laher

After a five-year break, Ash have returned with their latest album.  Purveyors of big, optimistic non-cheesy rock, this is a collection of old-fashioned, life-affirming anthems.  There’s plenty of swagger on show for a band eight albums in.

The album opens with the upbeat, catchy title track, followed up quickly by Usual Places, a tough rocker that could have appeared on any of their albums from the ’90s.  The album doesn’t let up for a second: Reward In Mind is a riffing, party rocker with loads of swagger.  But the centrepiece is heavy rocker Like A God which stomps all over your speakers with big balls and attitude.  It’s so good they reprise its metallic riffs right at the end of the album.

Tim Wheeler and co were always a dab hand at big ballads, and they don’t disappoint here, with Oslo building slowly into a nice duet between Wheeler and Démira, while Crashed Out Wasted is a great big, borderline soppy, epic.  There are plenty of tunes here to get up and jump around to.  Peanut Brain is a short sharp pop-punk tune that might have some doing Pete Townshend-style windmill movements, while Braindead is amped up like Queens of the Stone Age crossed with the Dandy Warhols.  And later, Double Dare, with slightly more grit, could be quite the doom-grunge brooder

On the evidence of this, there’s plenty of life left in these boys.  If you have any appetite for this sort of thing you’ll find yourself punching the air, and/or doing a wee bit of air guitar to much of this.  A very welcome return!

Like A God