Perennially power-popping Northern Irish trio ASH release their ninth studio album, ‘Ad Astra’, on October 3rd. Containing eleven brand new tracks, as well as their fruitily raucous take on surprise lead-off single and ‘Beetlejuice’ staple ‘Jump In The Line’, ‘Ad Astra’ sees Blur guitarist Graham Coxon appear on two particularly sassy songs and catches the Ash group in especially rocket-fuelled form.

If the band-who-fell-to-earth vibes of the video for ‘Give Me Back My World’, with our heroes dressed as spacemen - or Ashtronauts, if you will - hinted at some kind of starry-eyed musical construct, then album opener ‘Zarathustra’ literally takes that cosmic theme and runs with it. Ladies and gentlemen, Tim Wheeler, Mark Hamilton and Rick McMurray are emoting in space.

‘Ad Astra’ follows hot on the heels of ‘Race The Night’, being released two years and one month later, and this is no coincidence. Ever the band who live for live music, Ash vowed that the fierce pandemic-induced five year chasm between ‘Islands’ and ‘Race The Night’ would never happen again. In fact, ‘Ad Astra’ was going to be an even swifter follow-up, as Ash insiders were fully aware of half a dozen other new tracks which Tim was hogging which mixed Ash’s indie sensibilities with some of the slinkiest electro pop melodies this side of a Harry Styles stylus.