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Recommendation by BoringPostcards and I took it... love this album. Anyone who uses quirky complex chord voicings in rock gets a lot of love from me, and most of the songs on this seemingly extended edition are superb. Some choice lyrics in there as well.

crazyzeke wrote: ↑

Sun Mar 31, 2024 5:05 pm

Love Ash with a pASHion. Also love bad puns. I think Nu-Clear Sounds is underrated despite a couple of crap ones, like on that record something like Aphrodite is pure cheese, hate it.

Free All Angels is a bit uneven with forgettable stuff like Cherry Bomb and Candy which even live was a total snooze, but it's on the same album as Walking Barefoot which is literally one of the best pop-rock songs I've ever heard and other gems like Pacific Palisades and Nicole.

All time favourite track by them on the "soundtrack of my life" type album is easily A Life Less Ordinary which is far better than the film it was made for and long forgotten about.

Probably Meltdown was their last great album, kinda lost interest after that when Charlotte left, her the provider of very sweet backing harmonies. I mean Tim isn't exactly a powerful lead singer but he can carry a tune well enough - I think that might have been their weakness actually and maybe why they weren't bigger - and is an excellent writer.

It pains me that their biggest hit (other than Oh Yeah which I think still might be their only #1, and is a decent song with a nice string arrangement) is one of their blandest songs - Shining Light, but one of their other biggest was Burn Baby Burn and that track rules. Shoutout for Envy, definitely underrated for it's lunatic use of multiple key changes, I've no idea how they got away with it but it sounds ambitious and daring, two things a lot of modern rock bands just aren't.

I actually really like "Cherry Bomb" and "Shining Light", but Free All Angels definitely has some proper low points, I don't enjoy "Candy" either, and I think "Submission" is pretty awful, and a really bad fit on the record. I love those other tracks you mentioned though, they're at their absolute best doing those fizzy, fuzzy pop punk songs.

Agreed that it wasn't the same after Charlotte left, she definitely added an extra dimension to their sound. I got to see them eighteen months ago when she briefly rejoined for the Free All Angels anniversary tour and it was really enjoyable, but I'm undecided on if I want to see them again without her. I expect I probably will at some point.

They're one of those bands who leave me with a really strange feeling of melancholy rather than outright nostalgia. I was too young for 1977 and Nu-Clear Sounds, but 1977 especially is viewed as one of those zeitgeist records that encapsulated the joy and exuberance of being a teenager or early twenty-something in the mid/late-nineties, which I wasn't. So it's enjoyable but also leaves me feeling a bit sad that I feel as if I missed all the fun. But that's probably a separate discussion.

Explosions in the Sky - End

eilrahc wrote: ↑

Wed Apr 03, 2024 12:33 am

I actually really like "Cherry Bomb" and "Shining Light", but Free All Angels definitely has some proper low points, I don't enjoy "Candy" either, and I think "Submission" is pretty awful, and a really bad fit on the record. I love those other tracks you mentioned though, they're at their absolute best doing those fizzy, fuzzy pop punk songs.

Omg I forgot about Submission yeah the drummer Rick wrote that. He's into bondage we get it, but I think anyone on the BDSM scene should have the sense to keep that to those in it rather than write songs about it, words to live by. Awful song just as a song before you consider the lyrics. Yeah I don't mean to dunk on Cherry Bomb it's just a style of song they did better on their first and second album, for example I'd pick Wild Surf over it, a song that Kerrang! that bastion of quality they thought themselves of in the 90s/early 00s when I still cared and bought it, slated and slandered pretty hard. In true rock/punk attitude fashion that made me like it more.

eilrahc wrote: ↑

Wed Apr 03, 2024 12:33 am

Agreed that it wasn't the same after Charlotte left, she definitely added an extra dimension to their sound. I got to see them eighteen months ago when she briefly rejoined for the Free All Angels anniversary tour and it was really enjoyable, but I'm undecided on if I want to see them again without her. I expect I probably will at some point.

Yeah I saw them in 2001 on the original Free All Angels tour, which is part of why I dislike Candy so much - Tim put down his guitar to work the crowd, which ironically didn't work and was one of the few times the gig dragged, most of the rest was solid gold pop-rocking out. Great live sound - Portsmouth Pyramids, that was.

Same year and venue I saw - and no-one seems to believe this but this was the order of the bill - Muse, supported by Coldplay, supported by Snow Patrol. All of whom are huge. I find that hilarious now because Snow Patrol were a band with an identity crisis, didn't know who they were and what they were writing, all disparate genres, even had some faux-metal songs in the set. Coldplay on the other hand, already polished and huge live sound, still using the original keyboard for Trouble, Shiver was the bigger deal I think as Yellow had only just come out as a single and hadn't blown up to the point it was everywhere yet. I still think Shiver is the better song as it's more melodically interesting, lot of weird chords in it too. Muse were great, I bet you'll never get to see them do the majority of the first album live, including Unintended, a song that's basically been forgotten about now which is a shame because it's a great ballad, and I'd take it over the sub-Queen prog-rock cod-conceptual stuff they seem to peddle these days.

eilrahc wrote: ↑

Wed Apr 03, 2024 12:33 am

They're one of those bands who leave me with a really strange feeling of melancholy rather than outright nostalgia. I was too young for 1977 and Nu-Clear Sounds, but 1977 especially is viewed as one of those zeitgeist records that encapsulated the joy and exuberance of being a teenager or early twenty-something in the mid/late-nineties, which I wasn't. So it's enjoyable but also leaves me feeling a bit sad that I feel as if I missed all the fun. But that's probably a separate discussion.

You know it would be really tempting to say that the rep around 1977 for those of a certain age isn't all it's made out to be, but personally I find that record actually does capture some of the mid to late 90s "Rule Britannia" peak here in the UK, where great guitar music was everywhere and I assumed always would be. The thing is though, Ash were just one great band among many because of this - literally on rotation for me and my family along with Oasis, Blur, Ocean Colour Scene, The Charlatans and a bunch of others. I was 12 in 1996 when 1977 came out so that might be why, that was a good year for me. So you were musically spoilt for choice as a rock/pop-rock fan, even regular pop was on the whole less mediocre - someone like Ed Sheeran probably wouldn't have broken through in the 90s because the competition was so fierce. The music of the time certainly made having to put up with crap like Spice Girls (still a crappy name, sounds like they work in a shop) a lot easier. Also worked as a stepping stone back to brilliant older Britpop/Britrock like Kinks, Jam etc.

I naively assumed this upward trajectory would continue indefinitely and as a result worked hard on my songwriting because I figured it would continue to be a super-competitive marketplace to break, however, with the exception of guys like Biffy Clyro who occasionally focus and produce a great song, there just aren't the amazing dearth of UK rock bands there were a few decades ago. Sadly a lot of the best venues have closed - I literally don't think there's any kind of scene any more, but it's never too late to try, hence part of why I'm doing an originals band again for the first time since I was a teenager, however that is most DEFINITELY a separate discussion.

The Masters Apprentices - self titled

It's been on repeat for a few days now...



Ty Segall - Three Bells

Idaho - On Fire

Quite into this. Nice to hear some guitars on an Idaho recording again.

The Bitch Boys - Riding the First Wave

I got home to find my copy of Castle Rat's debut, 'Into the Realm', had arrived, so that got a spin.



Now spinning 'Live Through This' after Ms Love appeared in the Evening Standard.

Joe Pass - The Stones Jazz

Catherine Wheel - Ferment

An absolute highlight of... well it's not quite shoegaze, it's not straight pop or rock either but it's got elements of all of those. Talk Talk's Tim Friese-Greene handles production duties giving a surprisingly dreamy feel to everything where it's one big wall of sound but one that's comforting not overwhelming.

Personal highlights include Black Metallic, Flower To Hide, Texture and on the CD (not vinyl, sadly) the pure-pop hooks of Balloon but really there's nothing weak on it, and they never quite went back to this as a band although they almost always did something interesting, doubling down more on the hard rock/grunge and pop parts of their sound depending on the album.

No idea why there's two records shown in the picture though... unless there's a different version I don't know about, my MoV copy is a standard 33RPM single record.

Interview with Joe Gore (worked with Tom Waits

I know it's a video but essentially it's more of a podcast and I'm listening while doing other things.

Not only is Joe a total gentleman, very open about gear and technique, he's also hella witty, amazing storyteller and will probably make you laugh a few times. Well worth a listen, and I liked it when he mentioned his jazz and medieval music influences - stuff I didn't know but it's fun to find out where he's drawing from.

The Tremolo Beergut - Under The Influence of

Belfry by Messa. Increasingly dooming.

F15hface wrote: ↑

Wed May 01, 2024 2:29 pm

Belfry by Messa. Increasingly dooming.

Love this album!