Ash and Coal – Legacy

Ash and Coal promises more or less the world: When their latest release, Legacy, was introduced to me, it was pitched as a mixture of influences ranging from all of the heavier and darker Metal and Rock genres. Naturally, this quckly drew my attention, and I gave it a spin. Then, immediately afterwards, I gave it another one. Sure, I can to some extent hear some of the before-mentioned influences (the music is kept deliberately slow, and there is a strong emphasis to the melancholy presented by the lyrics, giving a very Doom Metal-like feel), but overall I would classify Ash and Coal as a Hard Rock band, with the above-mentioned hints thrown in for additional spice. All in all, Legacy is not a bad album – As a matter of fact, I would consider it to be a welcome addition to the Hard Rock genre. What initially threw me off regarding Legacy was not actually the album itself, but more the manner of which it was introduced to me – A description that I could not, for the life of me, recognize, no matter how hard I tried. So I gave the album another spin, this time properly enlightened, which made for a far more pleasant experience. Legacy marks the second release from Ash and Coal, and the first full-length album to be created by the Swedish band. It contains ten tracks in total, and has a running time reaching just above the forty-one minute mark. On top of that it is worth mentioning that Ash and Coal has managed to carve out their own style of music within the genre (which is something that I am almost always a fan of – It gives a band character and makes them more easily recognizable, as well as making them stand out). Below can be found the track ”Everyone’s a Misanthrope”, one of the shorter tracks from the release, but one that I feel most precisely shows off what this Swedish band is capable off, and is therefore the track that I chose to utilise in order to present them to you. Mind you, due to the general melancholic nature of the tracks and the overall feel of the music, Ash and Coal is a band that I would recommend to fans of bands such as U.D.O. (his ballads) and the newer AC/DC tracks. A solid album, that delivers something new (although not as extensive as it was painted up to be), and worth a few spins.

www.ashandcoal.se