Tim Wheeler simply can’t do anything wrong: ten new hits between power pop and hard rock that definitely won’t be hits.
Apart from the fact that after the “Ash” fade-in over the horror film feel of the video for the title song, you look in vain for the addition “vs. Evil Dead”, it is bittersweet how a graying Tim Wheeler sits there and spreads a feeling of optimism with another power pop singalong, while the click count below is sobering: the clip was viewed less than 20,000 times in the first month. After a vertical start to the top of the charts as teenagers, the Northern Irish have spent the past 20 years in small halls again – they mostly filled afternoon slots on the big festival stages with the hits from their first three albums.
You can actually listen to their work at random and you will constantly find (prevented) hits – their eighth regular studio album is no exception: With “Usual Places” you long for the golden age of the Schrammel clubs of the early noughties, on which Smashing Pumpkins-esque “Like A God” sees the band return to the hard rock of their conceptual work MELTDOWN, with which the indie heroes went against the zeitgeist in 2004, “Braindead” fulfills the promise of dull fun. In the epic duet with Démira, “Oslo,” Wheeler shows that he has of course long since outgrown his childhood shoes. Finally, one would like to paraphrase the classic “Oh Yeah”, released in 1996, as: “Oh yeah, it was the start of the second spring”.