The Beat Surrender

Ash have recently announced that Twilights Of The Innocents is to be their last long player, having released four albums prior to this one. It is a fairly controversial step for a band to take, especially when you consider that despite the fact they have been together a number of years, they are still relatively young.

The statement said ”...the band feel it is time to make a stand in the future digital arena by only releasing singles. Periodically, the band will release compilation CDs featuring the aforementioned singles…Owning their own recording studio means that the band will be able to write, record and release their music almost instantly, their fans will then benefit from not having to wait the usual ‘years’ between albums”.

This is of course the bands version of things, cynics amongst us may be quick to point out that the band have never really built their reputation on putting together brilliant albums that stand the test of time, they have consistently released good singles, but can you in all honesty put one of their albums up against their peers and say that its on the same level? Even 1977 was always an over rated album in my eyes, again it had great singles but it also had filler.

The noises coming out of the band around this release suggest that they are looking to go out with a bang by releasing the best album of their career so far. It isn’t far off (1977 probably still scrapes it for me), yet again though they haven’t delivered ‘the complete album’ and as such I don’t think their decision is going to have quite the impact on the music industry that they may have hoped for.

I Started A Fire is a decent opener and within the album both You Can’t Have It All and Polaris are good early tracks even if they were slightly disappointing singles. The first moment of negativity comes on the appropriately titled Palace Of Excess, a track that is spoilt by over the top rock riffing from the boys.

They quickly find their feet again though and End Of The World would make a great single, Ritual is nice enough and Shadows benefits from some lovely guitar work that would make it worthy of being a single. Princess Six is a bit more on edge, a far rockier track that doesn’t work too badly, the next track though is probably the best on the album. Dark And Stormy is a brilliant reflective ballad and is the best thing they have put to music in years.

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