I remember when summers actually meant something. It was time off from school and homework and structure, time to get all dirty and pretend you were something you weren't-- like a pirate or an astronaut or Optimus Prime or something. Those really were the days, I guess. These days, it's summer and I have to go spend eight hours of my day in a climate-controlled building, staring at a computer and making copies. Ah, but such is life. You need shelter overhead, after all.
It's a fair bet to say that Ash probably have all the shelter they need by now-- they've been massively popular in the UK ever since they first rocketed out of Northern Ireland with Trailer, back before they were even out of high school. Maybe it's just the fact that they achieved fame so early in life, but Ash seem now like a band caught between youth and adulthood. They're full of introspection and nostalgia lately, but the impetuousness that made their early records so enjoyable still burbles to the top on a pretty regular basis.
It's a dichotomy of ideals that makes their latest full-length-- their second as a quartet and fourth overall-- a compelling listen, if a seemingly contradictory one at times. Ash finally seem to have gotten around to growing up some, but the maturity of a song like "Walking Barefoot" actually suits them well, especially when it's countered with some solid looks over the shoulder at a time when the 'punk' was the louder half of the band's punk-pop equation.
And frequently, the newfound polish that coats the record is actually advantageous-- for example, "Candy" is a stately tribute to a lover, riding on clouds of swirling strings sampled from the Walker Brothers' "Make It Easy on Yourself." The medium tempos of "Shining Light" and "There's a Star" would have seemed like big shoes for this band to fill just a few years ago, but now they fit perfectly-- the band's evolution seems entirely natural.
"Someday, we'll leave this town/ It wears us down/ We'll leave somehow/ All its harm and all its charm/ Someday," Tim Wheeler sings on "Someday." I remember thinking this, too, when I was younger. Man, I couldn't wait to leave my hometown and experience something that I pretty much only knew as 'more.' Nowadays, I'm still eager to test out the possibilities of the world and see new places, but when I think of my hometown, I seem to place a lot more emphasis on the charm than the harm. I go back there now and see all the new developments that used to be farms and forests and it makes me pretty sick to see how the place where I grew up is being raped of its rural atmosphere. Wheeler seems to be caught in this same place on Free All Angels-- he wants to get out and see the world, but he also seems to understand that what he's leaving is a lot less complicated than what he's gravitating towards. On "Sometimes," he's pining for a lost love, but he's also resigned to the fact that most things aren't meant to last.
One of the things that's so surprising about Free All Angels is that the good-natured rocker "World Domination," a song with all the brash bravado and tongue-in-cheek humor of their earliest material, isn't the only one like it. "Shark" is a slamming pile-up of riffs from Wheeler and second guitarist Charlotte Hatherley, while "Pacific Palisades" is basically Jan & Dean on a lot of ephedrine, replete with Beach Boys-esque name checks.
And then there's the classic pop of "Cherry Bomb," a sweet little slice of Jello cut from the same wobbly mold as such classic Ash songs as "Girl from Mars." It's followed by what's perhaps the most curious song on the album, the hard-grooving, lascivious "Submission," which offers a bit more of the rock star posing that "World Domination" so enthusiastically spews. Wah pedals and-- I shit you not-- orchestral hits spice up an already hot rhythmic stew stirred up by drummer Rick McMurray and bassist Mark Hamilton.
"Wait for the summer/ It'll come 'round again," Wheeler sings on "Pacific Palisades." Well that's hopeful, now, isn't it? And that's kind of what I get out of this album. Even though we may not be as free to take off and explore possibilities and our imaginations as we were when we were all younger, it doesn't mean that imagination is gone or those possibilities are faded-- we just need to find new ways to take advantage of them. Hell, I know that's not what Ash are really getting at conceptually, but it makes a lot of sense, and I think that on Free All Angels they've expressed it.
Regardless of its conceptual significance, though, Free All Angels certainly works on another level. It's a damn good pop album, with a little muscle behind its melodies to boot. And no matter where you stand on the childhood-to-adulthood spectrum, that's something just about everybody can use now and then.
