1977

by

Ash

Edit

Ash's 1977 opens with the cheesy roar of a Star Wars TIE-fighter (did they have to pay royalties to the Lucas empire for that audio clip?), launching itself into a high-octane, quick energy groove, where it happy sits for its entirety. Infectious pop hooks, loud guitars, and a heavy punk influence characterize this album. The lyrics are what you'd expect -- nothing terribly deep, but good enough not to distract from the music. Who wouldn't want to sing along to the teenage-angsty "Girl From Mars" while head banging to its slick riffs?

1977 subscribes to philosophies that have served rock and roll well over the years -- never learn four chords when three will do, and when you're playing the drums, hit them as hard as you can. There's a fair amount of distortion and fuzz going on. The songs are fast and relatively short. It's a punk album that hasn't forgotten that punk is supposed to be fun. This is music to jump around to. The track, "Kung Fu", is wonderfully typical. It's a song featuring muffled lyrics with only the bridge being easily understandable: "Come on, Jackie Chan, a oh oh oh ah oh!" Listening to this song with its quick beat and catchy guitars will tempt even the most out-of-shape music lover to attempt a few martial arts moves on the furniture.

However, like other successes in this field, you get the feeling that these aren't just throwaway punk songs with a limited shelf life. Now, I'm not trying to justify my enjoyment by claiming this is grand art or anything. But I've listened to this album countless times and I dig it just as much now as I did the first time. The songs stay fresh even after one has memorized every second of the audio. That's impressive.

Now as much as I like this album, I simply cannot force myself to listen all the way to the end. Not because of any musical deficiencies, but because the hidden track is a long and really nasty sound byte of one of the Ash band members being loudly and violently ill after a night of heavy partying. Listen to the album all the way through once and you'll never again forget to leap for the stop button once the final musical selection has played.

1977 is a fun album full stop. It encompasses all the fun things about being a teenager: martial arts films, science fiction, love angst, and loud music. In fact, while quickly typing out this review, I've managed to listen to "Kung Fu" three times. Excuse me, but I've got to go off and practice my karate chops on my hat stand.

To say the thruth I enjoyed this cd. I bought it after listening to some songs from a jukebox. Some songs such as 'Let it Flow' and 'Kung Fu' are really cheery and chatchy. My favourite has to be 'Lost in You' which harks back in a way to a Beatles song. Some songs are really average though with long and boring guitar riffs which go on repeating forever (such as Dark and Lightside) My main grudge must be pointed towards the lyrics which mostly talk about love and girls and all this tripe (really uninspiring stuff). My advice is to listen to some songs before buying this.Just don't expect a classic which will grant you repeated listening. Eventually this will gather a lot of dust on your shelf.