MICK MCSHANE is roused by a band whose socialism laces every line of every song with commitment and raw passion
Latest editorial
Hardship Starship by No Hot Ashes
New releases from Mountain, Soul Asylum and Michael McDermott
ALEX HALL is disgusted by the misuse of ‘emotional narratives’ to justify uninformed geo-political prejudice
SUE TURNER welcomes a thoughtful, engaging book that lays bare the economic realities of global waste management
JOHN GREEN welcomes an insider account of the achievements and failures of the transition to democracy in Portugal
SIMON PARSONS applauds an imaginative and absorbing updating of Strindberg’s classic
PETER MASON is enthralled by an assembly of objects, ancient and modern, that have lain in the mud of London’s river
No Hot Ashes
Hardship Starship
(Modern Sky UK)
NO HOT ASHES hail, like 10cc, from Stockport and although a generation apart they share an approach to music unbeholden to any genre in particular.
Intelligent and inventive arrangements deliver a studio sound that’s far richer and more complex than the band’s live act.
Isaac Taylor and Luigi Di Vuono’s guitars are intricate one minute and blasting their way through the next, while Jack Walsh on bass and Matthew Buckley on drums keep the adrenaline flowing.
There’s existential rather than political angst in their songs. “There’s not much more that I can take, Oh I’m sick of all these bellyaches,” sings Taylor in Bellyaches.
More from this author
MICHAL BONCZA recommends a compact volume that charts the art of propagating ideas across the 20th century
MICHAL BONCZA reviews Cairokee gig at the London Barbican
