| Five tracks into Ash's second album, and
something rather arresting happens. Frontman
Tim Wheeler - never, it must be said, the
most versatile of vocalists - starts to sing
without the apparent benefit of oxygen, his
words a breathless mash of distortion over
a bleating air raid siren. Four frenzied
minutes later, Death Trip 21 - which sounds
very much like EMF doing Iggy Pop - staggers
to an impressively tumultuous halt, thus
ending Ash's most concerted effort yet at
growing up in public. In 1996, Ash released
1977, one of the former year's more entertaining
guitar records. From Northern Ireland, all
three members were still at school with exams
pending when they laid hands on The Undertones'
back catalogue and promptly decided to resurrect
their ghost. 1977, a defiantly two-dimensional
record with a repetitive three-chord trick,
had one major selling point: its sheer ebullience.
Girl From Mars was their very own Teenage
Kicks, while Oh Yeah and Goldfinger were
almost equal to My Perfect Cousin. Half a
million album sales later, and they were
one of the country's biggest new bands. If
that album was their teenage homage to punk,
then Nu-Clear Sounds sees them successfully
entering the 1980s with a style seemingly
based entirely on Sonic Youth's early years.
On two of the more pronouncedly new wave
numbers, Numbskull and Fortune Teller, Wheeler
even affects a zoned-out East Coast accent
while no doubt picturing himself standing,
legs akimbo, on stage at C.B.G.B.'s with
a twitching Andy Warhol filming his every
physical nuance. Meanwhile, the strapping
single Jesus Says attempts to replicate the
kind of cool that came naturally to Wheeler's
mentors while he was still busy soiling nappies.
Mostly, then, Nu-Clear Sounds is hard and
fast, the emphasis on volume (which, presumably,
is where additional guitarist Charlotte Hatherley
comes in), but the two rather affecting ballads
here, Folk Song and I'm Gonna Fall, at least
hint at a nascent dexterity. In many ways,
Ash are among the least complex of today's
bands. They resolutely push no envelope,
aspire to no layered sonnets, no chiming
surprises. Which means that, once again,
youthful enthusiasm proves their most vocal
ally. And with an average age of just 21,
they've certainly got that on their side. |
