I'm reviewing the UK version of the album, so the tracklisting is as follows: Season; Jack Names The Planets; Intense Thing; Uncle Pat; Get Out; Petrol; Obscure Thing
Tim Wheeler (guitar and vocals), Mark Hamilton (bass) and Rick McMurray (drums) were teenagers when they recorded their debut album. 'Trailer' shows both sides to Ash - light and dark, alternating between them on the album, with opener 'Season' a song about a friend's suicide.
Of the light side are the singles: 'Jack Names The Planets' is the only song with obvious singalong chorus, and begins with a bizarre conversation between two Dutchmen; whereas 'Uncle Pat' and 'Petrol' follows-up their verses with instrumentation - the former with a lead guitar line said by Tim to having a rural and Irish quality, whilst the latter is topped up by twinkling guitars and driven on by Mark's bass-lines.
Then there's the dark side. By far my favourite track is 'Intense Thing' - it's noise guitar, menacing bass and heavy drumming after the opening calm of clean make for an intense alternating two-chord bridge build-up to chorus. A chorus which, when it comes, you will want to be singing along to. And with the provided lyrics you can.
'Get Out' is of a three-chord punk flavour, played with speed. In the final song, Tim Wheeler's voice becomes the 'Obscure Thing' - spoken vocals are about audible, and even his growls are almost lost as they lie low in the mix, so it sounds like an instrumental, and not a strong end to the album.
Aside from 'Intense Thing', I found the album to be an average listen, hence I can only recommend it to Ash fans who haven't already got this. Trailer does exactly what it was meant to do - it's an example of what Ash would be well known for, but just don't expect it to be full of pop choruses.
How helpful would this review be to a person making a buying decision? Rating guidelines
Liked 1977 and Free All Angels - haven't heard this though as you say, perhaps a little too heavy-going for my ears as I'm into more 'light' side Ash :) tom
SweetTooth93 28.01.2009 17:47
Oh dear :-( xx
hughesmonger 28.01.2009 14:07
Haven't heard of them before, but a great review like always.
Jan 28th, 2009
very helpful by (52%):
helpful by (48%):
![River Is Wide, The [Remastered] - Forum (The)](http://imagesb.ciao.com/iuk/images/products/small/251/prod_small-6006251.jpg)
