Intergalactic Sonic Sevens

It’s been a full ten years since three fresh-faced schoolboys from Downpatrick formed a rock band. Tim, Mark and Rick’s first proper steps into the world of pop came two years later with the ’94 release of ‘Jack Names The Planets’, ‘Petrol’ and ‘Uncle Pat’, all unpolished gems of adolescent brilliance.

Their classic debut album 1977 produced an impressive number of stunning singles – ‘Kung Fu,’ ‘Girl From Mars,’ ‘Angel Interceptor’, ‘Goldfinger’ – exuberant punk rock brushed by the breathless bloom of youth, and culminating in the perfect, heady nostalgia evoked by ‘Oh Yeah’.

By ‘97, Ash had left their teenagerdom behind and their new sound coincided with the addition of guitarist Charlotte Hatherly. The uncomfortable reception that greeted the troublesome second album Nu-Clear Sounds is recalled here in the darker, harder sound of ‘Jesus Says’, the knowing pastichery of ‘Wildsurf’, and, most acutely, in ‘Numbskull’, the gore-spattered scuzz-fest which defiantly closes this collection.

Intermingled with past glories, on Intergalactic Sonic Sevens we get all the triumphant, return-to-form stuff from Free All Angels – the elegant uplift of ‘Shining Light,’ the lush ‘Candy’ and the blazing ‘Burn Baby Burn’. The newest single, ‘Envy,’ is pretty good, if not quite the equal of their classics.

It’s a pity because although it might look like a prettily packaged treat for Ash fans – Intergalactic Sonic Seven’s (soon to be followed by a B-side compilation) is a collection of absoloutely cracking tunes that might just bring the acclaim that has so far escaped Ash in the US.

I suspect that Ash’s best is yet to come – that said, it’ll be some achievement if they can top a collection of this magnificence even in another ten years. Sonic youths, indeed.