The Student Playlist

Showcasing the Best New Music, Curating the Classics

Tag Tim Wheeler

REVIEW: Ash – ‘Islands’ (BMG / Infectious)

Seventh album ‘Islands’ finds Ash in dynamic but uneven form, with the slower tracks and ballads edging out their regular pop-punk glories for the first time ever.

FROM WORST TO BEST: Ash Singles

by Ed Biggs In the two decades since Ash first demolished the British charts with their debut album 1977, few can claim to have been such a quintessentially ‘singles band’ as the Northern Irish three-piece. Rock music’s perpetual adolescents, stuck in a Neverland-like mindset of endless childhood summers, first romances and house parties, their singles were the essence of teenage lust, of unrequited desire, of both shyness and youthful confidence.

A Very Indie Christmas: An Alternative Festive Playlist

Ah, Christmas: the season of travel disruptions, disappointing presents and violent stomach cramp. Not to mention being bombarded by the same bloody songs over and over again. If you’ve ever quietly gritted your teeth in murderous rage at Noddy Holder screeching “It’s CHRIIIIIIISTMAAAAS” for the 50th time in a week, we feel your pain. To provide a soothing remedy for what ails you, we’ve made a playlist of ten weird and wonderful seasonal

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REVIEW: Ash – ‘Kablammo!’ (Pledge / earMUSIC)

by Ed Biggs What a tremendous pleasure it is for anybody who was a teenager at the turn of the millennium to see Ash back on the scene! It’s been five years since the conclusion of their intriguing ‘A-Z’ project, a subscription collection consisting of 26 singles released one per fortnight for a whole calendar year from 2009 to 2010. It saw the band attempt to play to their strengths –

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