To coincide with the release of their forthcoming ninth studio album, Ad Astra, via Fierce Panda Records on 3rd October, Ash have unveiled details of seven intimate instore and outstore shows in addition to their previously announced UK tour dates, tickets for all of Ash‘s upcoming UK shows are available here. Containing eleven brand new tracks, including their raucous take on surprise single and Beetlejuice staple Jump In The Line and the most recent single, Give Me Back My World, the Ad Astra album sees Graham Coxon (Blur) appear on two particularly sassy songs and catches the perennial power pop kings in typically rocket-fueled form. Ad Astra follows hot on the heels of Race The Night, the band’s highest charting album for 20 years, and is being released two years and one month later, which is no coincidence. Always a band that lives for live music, Ash vowed that the fierce pandemic-induced five-year chasm between 2018’s Islands and 2023’s Race The Night would never happen again. 

By focusing on the endless horizon of galaxies far, far away and staring into an endless black hole Ash have somehow ended up creating a cohesive whole on Ad Astra. There is classic Ash power-pop rocking action with the blistering purity of Hallion, the crunchy chuggings of Keep Dreaming and the furious sonic lunges of Dehumanised. But equally you can’t fail to succumb to the glorious swooping jangles on Which One Do You Want? or My Favourite Ghost and its acoustic elegance, and Fun People, that features Graham Coxon, that is quite simply one of the maddest, punchiest songs they have ever recorded.

As if creating this lovingly optimistic opus wasn’t enough to be getting on with, they’ve kept themselves busy elsewhere. Since Race The Night came out, they’ve run riot at SXSW in Austin, played Belfast for Steve Lamacq during Independent Venue Week, headlined the 100 Club in London and toured Australia. Already this year, they’ve amassed the masses at Glastonbury for the eighth time, equaling the multi performance record of Van Morrison, and toured the UK with The Darkness. In short, three decades into a career peppered with timeless Indie-Punk nuggets and wildly inventive gigging and releasing concepts, the trio shows no sign of slowing down. To infinity and beyond indeed.

“The title Ad Astra, the worst kept secret of the last month, points to ideas that became a big identifier back in 1995, but they’re updated with 30 years life experience. I’ll leave you to compare the differences, and with the thought that while the optimistic innocence of 1995 might have been tempered by those 30 years, if you look to the stars, you might still feel a glimmer. Of hope.” (drummer Rick McMurray)

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