Review Summary: Den of Ashes tries to combine Seventies country rocks tendencies with modern touches, and succeeds.
Den of Ashes, aka Ashley Beck, is an artist that can easily prove the rule that artistic family roots are a good precondition for some excellent artistic results. Of course, if you have enough talent and are able to use them. Based on what he has done so far, Den doe not only have talent but can use it too.
Starting out ‘somewhere in the background’ working on the videos for the likes of Beck (“Devil’s Haircut”), Nine Inch Nails (“Closer”) and Madonna (“Bedtime Stories”), Ash has now come to produce some exquisite singer/songwriter, alt-country music.
After the debut EP Blackbird and 2019 album California (one of the best alt-country albums of that year), he simply confirms that he is on the right track with his latest EP Garden of Ashes.
Not that it was unexpected for Ash to take that route, as he is the grandson of Country & Western entertainers John and “Texas Peggy”, Clemens, also known as The Wyoming Ramblers. But instead of sticking solely to his family’s C&W routes, Ash adds that singer/songwriter trail to the paths he is following.
While California explored all the possibilities of what ‘Western’ as a sub-genre of Americana can offer, Garden of Ashes goes a step further in the ‘Californian’ direction. Actually, what Ash seems to be trying here is see how you can expand that early Seventies West Coast sound pioneered by the likes of Neil Young and Jackson Browne from that period and give it a new, fresh outlook.
Jay Farrar and Jeff Tweedy started and continue to take new different steps, first jointly as Uncle Tupelo, and then with their separate approaches with Son Volt and Wilco. But while their steps were more radical, so to say, Ash is more of a modifier than somebody who scraps everything to the ground. He builds on what has been there already, adding subtle touches like strings on the brilliant David Ackles-style “Garden”.
But, not taking radical steps in no way demeans what Den of Ashes has done so far. With its excellent instrumentation and Ash’s lush vocals throughout these four tracks, Garden of Ashes just confirms that Ashley Beck is on the right track here and that even greater (musical) things can be expected of him.
