Ash is something of an anomaly. I've always said of them that they can never decide what kind of band they want to be, and this is their greatest strength. They're definitely not an emo act, they've been around since the early 90s (well before the term was coined) yet their music shares elements in common with some of it's more seminal purveyors (i.e. Get Up Kids, The Promise Ring). The Irish quartet have always been musical chameleons, which was definitely evident on their 2001 masterpiece Free All Angels, an album that is all over the map stylistically speaking, but mostly demonstrates their knack for constructing extremely catchy chorus-driven pop gems that possess a sunny almost twee singalong quality.

On their new release Meltdown, the band again carefully dodges being pigeon-holed into any specific genre with a 14 track winner that finds them touching on their earlier more metal roots, as well as their patented up-tempo 3 minute power pop janglers that this time out bear an undeniable likeness to Supergrass. And in yet another attempt to capture an American audience they've enlisted Foo Fighters producer Nick Raskulinecz, on this their fifth album as well as their fifth record label. Raskulinecz thumprint can be detected by the big drum and guitar sound typified by the title track - unfortunately the song comes off as a pretty obvious attempt to sound like the Foos.

The song "Starcrossed" is the best example of what Ash does so well, the kind of grand swooning ballad that singer/guitarist Tim Wheeler excels at. A rather formulaic pop song with great gleaming hooks that tends to lodge in your subconscious for days at a time and keep you from ejecting the CD from the player in favor of some other new flavor of the month. Meltdown, however is not as consistent as Free All Angels and has a few track-skippers like "Clones" and "Detonator" which could have been pared from the final cut. Alas Ash still has it's ace-in-the-hole, in the person of Charlotte Hatherly who is without a doubt one of the finest female lead guitarists in the game, and as always her harmonies layered so effortlessly in the choruses give the songs that little extra something that lends the majority of their music a timeless magic that keeps the band ever compelling, and makes you root for them to find the kind of audience they definitely deserve.