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Luckily, that's exactly what seems to have happened. Especially in the songwriting department. Oh, there may be some startling Spanishy bits (all whipcracks and people going "hey!"), and a bit where you could swear that Matt Bellamy is playing one of his apocalytosynths in the background, but the real head-turning, attention-demanding massively-dangerous secret weapon at the heart of this song is that the chorus is really, really catchy.

Sounds crap, doesn't it? Like 'catchy' is some form of POP WEAKNESS when we are expecting TOTAL IMMERSION IN SONIC NOISE DEATH. But that is what Ash do best. They take loud guitar dynamics and they use them to create a kind of pop music which is HEWN from the VERY BEDROCK of ROCK ITSELF.

It's still pop music though. Albeit a kind of pop music that has massively rippling muscles, a torn T-shirt and lives in a desert with lots of cliffs nearby. Like the landscape in the Roadrunner cartoons. Not Scooch's natural home, is the point I'm making...but then again, the word's 'Scooch' and 'natural' don't really sit well together, do they? So I'll shush now...

Download: April 9th
CD Released: April 16th

(Fraser McAlpine)

PS: Sorry, this has only just occured to me. Ash's singles compilation, which was out a couple of years back, is called 'Intergalactic Sonic 7s'. Which is a perfectly fine title and all, but I think they missed a trick. Why on EARTH didn't they call it 'Ash Hits'? That would have RULED.