Ash -- Hipster Music

Free All Angels

I mean, it's okay. Rock like this should be less produced, though. Don't get me wrong, there are some bands that should have glossy production and whatnot, but this isn't one of those groups. The stuff should be dirtier and more up front. Songs like "Shark" sound as if they were recorded in some sort of hairband space ship somewhere, and others have shimmering tambourines that make me want to shoot myself. It's all a matter of taste, of course, but I just don't dig the Inspiral Carpets/Stone Roses thing. It's just too nice, too clean, too blah.

Trailer

I could have sworn these guys were like German or something. There's a break before one of their songs, "Jack Names the Planet" in which a couple wacky foreigners talk--and I thought it might be the guys' siblings or something. Turns out they're Irish and not Nazis at all! Instead, they are pop-punk/grunge songsters that probably listened to a lot of Nirvana before recording this 1995 debut album. Granted, they don't have that angry, heroin-addicted thing going, nor do they have the ground-breaking musical thing going on, but as a somewhat clean pop punk-ish band, they could be worse. They could be better too. When it comes down to it, Trailer just doesn't have the staying power to make it into heavy rotation.