Ash: This year is all about change for the band. New homes and a new direction

After five albums, Ash are back to their original line-up as a trio. We caught them on a sunny day in London to capture a fantastic live performance with five tracks from their new album Twilight Of The Innocents and a classic cover.

- Check out pictures from the session

It's been a long wait for Ash but now they're ready to rip the wraps off of their latest collection Twilight Of The Innocents. The album started life quite some time ago and the band finished recording in January of this year. Having decamped to New York to live and write, Tim, Mark and Rick (who moved to Edinburgh instead) are enjoying watching their labours come to fruition.

Tim describes it this way: "It's a period of frustration, you just want people to hear it as soon as possible. It's been a very long weird time this time but you've just got to keep yourself busy ... the week after we finished the record we were out on tour so we've been doing a lot since then trying to keep our minds off it."

It had been an even longer break for the band in terms of playing live with more than a year coming between their last shows supporting the 2004 album Meltdown and the first shows of 2007. "We did a couple of secret shows in New York to try everything out as a three piece to see if we could pull it off but within a couple of songs I think we all knew it was really going to work," says Rick.

Ash's career spans the rise of digital and as they describe, they've always tried to keep control in their own hands, Mark: "The first ever product that we sold or was whenever we manufactured our own cassettes and sold them to any shops in Belfast and then we'd make copies of them at home. Then through a young enterprise scheme get print our own 12-inch vinyl and from that our own manager got hold of some vinyl and he signed us, this was even before CDs."

Rick says: "We've always kept at the forefront of that sort of thing the first download free download that we did just before Free All Angels album I think it was December 2000 wasn't it and we also used the Internet to have fans vote for which venues they wanted us to play on that tour as well so it's something we've always tried to pioneer."

The recent line-up change has also revived the band according to Tim, "We needed things to be shaken up a bit so going back to a three piece was a good way of doing that it just made it made a lot of things challenging again. We've known each other ever since we were teenagers, it's just there's such a good communication and understanding between us."

And the fire remains burning bright inside the trio, throughout our chat it's quite clear they've many targets set for themselves and plenty of energy to try and achieve them. Rumours of their demise have been greatly exaggerated and talk of a 'last album' is a reference to their plans for quick fire digital releases instead. "We want to be able to use the Internet and just put tracks up when they're ready and maybe later compile them into records, it seems a good way of bowing out of that sort of format you're kind of trapped by," says Tim.

But it's all about the music and for Ash, a whole new phase is opening up. "The last song of the album called Twilight of The Innocents was a complete experiment. We were just trying new stuff and we ended up with something really new and really exciting for us that points to new directions for us - next year we'll get back into the studio and take that even further," says Tim.

So, check out the original Ash line-up with six brand new songs from the album Twilight Of The Innocents in this exclusive AOL Music Session, including the stunning title track that points the way forward for the band. Sure is good to have them back!

- Download Ash with iTunes
- Buy Ash on CD from Amazon
- Visit their official website
- Search for more online on Ash

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