Ash - '1977: 30th Anniversary' Album Review

36 minutes ago

2 min read

Bloody hell, '1977' is 30 years already! That’s totally caught me out as it still feels like only yesterday I played it for the first time and was blown away. So Ash have decided to do a 30th anniversary reissue of this seminal album.

Full disclosure time, I love Ash, both on record and as a live band. I know they’ve been successful but I’ve always felt they deserved to be bigger. The boys, will maybe not boys anymore, from Northern Ireland have long been one of the UK’s best bands and beloved by many. They also work incredibly hard, constantly touring, releasing new music which has consistently been excellent and reviews of which you can read on this site and generally proving the point that they deserve everything they get.

However, I did approach this review with with a degree of trepidation, as noted I love this album and this band but my experience is that a lot of these let’s celebrate an album reissues are, to an extent, a rip off. You bought the album first time round, you loved it, so now go buy it again. That only really works for me if the reissue gives you something that your original copy doesn’t.

This reissue has been remastered and sounds as fresh and clean as it always deserved to but I’m pleased to say, if you’re a fan, there is also plenty here to make it worthwhile investing in the reissue.

Firstly, as noted, it’s a seminal album and any record that includes 'Girl From Mars', 'AngeI Interceptor', 'Oh Yeah', 'Goldfinger' and 'Lost In You' is already worth owning but they’ve gone a bit overboard which makes the whole thing worthwhile.

There are 34 songs here, some demos, some acoustic versions and 18 live songs from Stabal, if you’ve ever seen Ash live you will know that’s where they truly come alive. They are a brilliant live act and getting 18 live songs makes this worth buying on its own never mind everything else.

They have also, drum roll, added 'Bittersweet Blue', the long lost song from Ash and not only that but they’ve gone and released it as a single as well which gives you the option of the album or just the single.

If all of that wasn’t enough they are also going back out of tour in support of the re-release, with an extensive tour covering more venues than is probably good for them but it means you get the chance to see them all over the UK and Ireland over the course of October, November and December.

The tour starts with UK out stores which should be a chance to get more intimate with the band before seeing them perform in a number of iconic venues.

Ash, the band you should love if you don’t already are back out on tour playing their best album, what’s not to love? Buy it, buy a ticket and prepare to bounce and sing your hearts out!