Ash: Free All Angels [US Bonus Track] : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

"Gimme gimme world domination/We are the new sensation/To the whole population," declares Ash singer-guitarist Tim Wheeler at the end of Free All Angels, in the exultant buzz-pop sign-off, "World Domination." By then, the quartet from Northern Ireland -- Wheeler, bassist Mark Hamilton, guitarist Charlotte Hatherley and drummer Rick McMurray -- have given you a fistful of good reasons to hand over the unconditional love: "Pacific Palisades," two minutes of serrated-guitar bliss, laced with Beach Boys-style vocal gold; the pneumatic power candy of "Cherry Bomb"; the U.K. hit "Burn Baby Burn," breathless punk with a police-siren guitar lick and a chorus like sunshine. Ash have long been underrated paragons of pop punk, combining the riff heft of Seattle's gilded age with the boyish joy of Northern Ireland's own late-Seventies Ramones, the Undertones. That is, when Ash stick to the script. Half of Free All Angels, their fourth studio album, sinks under sluggish ballad tempos, sour strings and, in "Submission," unnecessary electronica. But the half that doesn't, such as "Walking Barefoot," is solid chain-saw fun, some of the best '77 you'll hear in 2002.

DAVID FRICKE
(RS 899/900 - July 4, 2002)