In these days of the whoosh-up-and-down firework career, fifth albums are a rare beast. Fifth albums that are actually worth getting excited about are, of course, even rarer. But 'Twilight Of The Innocents' is the record that proves it can be done. It's ambitious, it's energized and it's packed to the rafters with tunes. Fifteen years after they formed at school in Downpatrick, Northern Ireland, Ash have never sounded better. Really, they haven't.

 

The journey that led to this remarkable album began on July 23rd 2005. That was the day Ash opened for U2 at Rome's 70,000-capacity Olympic Stadium. It was Ash's fifth show with Bono's boys that summer and the very last engagement of the campaign for Meltdown, the hard-rockin' fourth album they'd released 14 tour-filled months earlier.

 

The band reconvened in New York at the beginning of 2006. Cue more big changes. Nine years after bringing in guitarist Charlotte Hatherley for V97, the original members of Ash decided it was time to go back to being a three-piece, leaving Hatherley to pursue her already-blossoming solo career. "It was a hard decision," says Wheeler. "But I think it was the best one for all of us."

 

To get things going in the studio, the band hooked up their instruments and played together as a three-piece for the first time since the heady mid-90s, when they'd first blasted to attention as teenage punk-popsters with anthems like 'Girl From Mars', 'Oh Yeah' and 'Goldfinger'. "It was quite a moment," remembers Wheeler. "Before that first rehearsal there was definitely a lot of insecurity and fear flying around, with everyone wondering if we'd done the right thing going back to a three-piece. But as soon as we started playing, we knew it was the right decision. Our playing has just developed so much since we were last a three-piece. It totally reinvigorated us. There was a real freshness to things after that."

 

Re-energised, the band set to work. "It soon became clear that we had loads of great songs," says Wheeler, "but the recording process ended up being a really long one, because we were doing everything ourselves. The hours I put in were crazy. For the last four months I was working through the night pretty much every night. But I had a picture of what I wanted the album to be and it wasn't until really close to the end that it took it's full shape. That's when we realised how good it was."

 

But, throughout, the album also showcases a new musical ambition. It's there in the strident groove that drives 'I Started A Fire', in the stylistic twists and turns of the wonderfully buoyant 'Ritual', in the fizz and pop of the swoonsome 'End Of The World' and, particularly, in the epic grandeur of the title track, which closes the album. Over six and a half minutes, 'Twilight Of The Innocents' builds from a simple guitar line into a climactic tumult of strings, drums and bared emotions, giving Muse a run for their Big Rock money. "I think this is easily our most artistically accomplished and adventurous album yet," says Wheeler.

 

"A lot of bands who make it to their fifth album seem to kick back and do their dusty country record," says Wheeler. "But we're not ready to slow down yet. We've still got the hunger and the energy. We're freaks of nature, really. Ever since we started there have been bands who have a big album and then disappear completely. But we've managed to buck that trend, because we've never stopped driving forwards. We knew we needed to do something special with this record. And I honestly think we have."