Noise Pop: Ash

Islands is the new album by Northern Irish rock group Ash. The trio’s seventh studio collection, due for a May 18 release on Infectious Music, it’s an open-hearted set of songs dealing with love and loss, friendship and betrayal, identity, salvation, redemption, and rebirth… all the important stuff. Pound-for-pound, it’s also the strongest, most exhilarating long player of Ash’s storied 26-year career, an album which reaffirms the trio’s status as one of the most idiosyncratic and singularly thrilling guitar bands on these islands.