Ash

Ash

Terminally underrated like some pop-punk also-ran, Ireland's Ash get the short end of the stick with every new release. Their first two albums, 1994's Trailer, featuring swaggering single "Jack Names the Planets," and follow-up 1977, with the walloping, hook-laden funbomb "Kung Fu," were well-received in the UK, but failed utterly to catch on stateside. Given their recent SXSW 02 showcase, they're not only still cranking out their odd brand of melodic power-pop, they're doing so with a stripped-down, sternum-rattling gusto that recalls Stiff Little Fingers meeting the Ramones at Pete Shelley's pad: easy on the Buzzcockery, but with more shrieking, awfully Irish guitar spasms. Free All Angels, with the blisteringly catchy "Burn Baby Burn" primed to break this maddeningly misplaced bunch of rock & roll hooligans outside of their native soil, is a mixed blessing of sorts. With Tim Wheeler's pinwheeling guitar pulling out all the stops and Mark Hamilton's chunky bass galloping, "Shining Light" is a boisterous anthem, as is "Burn Baby Burn" and "Cherry Bomb." There are also blatant dead ends like the downright silly "Candy," and the abysmal balladeering of "Someday." That pair of deathwatch beatles aside, Free All Angels is awfully consistent in its ardent desire to make your ears ring. It's a frenetic and grindingly melodic return to form from a band that never left in the first place, North American market be damned. (Ash opens for Our Lady Peace at Stubb's, Wednesday, July 17.)