Ash – Ad Astra (Silver Vinyl, Gatefold)

The ninth album from Downpatrick's eternal teenagers, released on Fierce Panda in October 2025 and riding the momentum of Race the Night, their biggest hit in twenty years. Nearly three decades on from naming their debut 1977 after the year Star Wars came out, the space obsession burns brighter than ever: the record opens with a swaggering synth-rock take on Also Sprach Zarathustra and closes with a title track that's a literal planetary escape.

In between, Tim Wheeler, Mark Hamilton and Rick McMurray cover the full multiverse of Ashness. Blur's Graham Coxon guests on two tracks, most memorably the gloriously chaotic punk-pop of Fun People, while Which One Do You Want? channels Johnny Marr jangle, My Favourite Ghost strips back to aching chamber balladry, and a skanking cover of the calypso standard Jump in the Line proves the try-anything-once instinct is fully intact. Punchy, funny and pining in all the right places.