Also this issue: John Freyer -Chris Cummins Visible Work, Invisible Women -Paul Burress Phil Automaton Pre-party -Nancy Armstrong Suzanne Westenhoefer -Kristina Weise

November 21-27, 2002

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Ash

Pummeled by friendly attention from the metal scene, adored by a thousand ex-schoolgirls who think “Girl from Mars” is about them, co-opted into campaigns for everything from the Belfast Young People Thugs media ambush to an anti-smoking push (in which they steadfastly refused to take part), Ash have more trouble answering their many supporters than their critics. While it’s spectacularly ironic that their major-chord thrashing (as evidenced on their new album Free All Angels by the Kiss-ass “World Domination”) has been read with a straight face -- yes, Britain’s rock/metal bible Kerrang! nominated them for Best British Band in 2001 -- there are still traces of the three Star Wars-obsessed lads from Northern Ireland whose second album, 1977, opened with the squeal of an Imperial TIE fighter. Less heavy with references, and shaded with more whispered emotion than earlier efforts, the new record wears its choppy riffs proudly, thanks in most part to Charlotte Hatherley’s guitar. If the creeping sense is that Tim Wheeler’s vocals are becoming just too silky in comparison with the tightly wound guitar -- well, you never know, he might grow out of that in another few years.

Sat., Nov. 23, 8 p.m., $16-$18, with Saves the Day, Circle and Square and Kind of Like Spitting, Electric Factory, 421 N. Seventh St., 215-336-2000.

—Juliet Fletcher