Reviews of Charlotte Hatherley’s debut album have made comparisons to her main project’s latest works, most of them good; Grey Will Fade is the indiepop companion to Meltdown’s return to the rock, and while not universally loved, Hatherley’s album seems to sit better with many of the people who fell in love with stuff like Free All Angels.

This, in a sense, is where it all began. Previous to this, Hatherley had written a couple of Ash b-sides and had done guitar duty in Nightnurse, but it wasn’t until “Grey Will Fade” that Hatherley seemed to find an audience for her own songs. The b-side became a fan favourite, and soon after Hatherley began thinking about her own solo release. Three years later, people are starting to make the Pixies analogy, Charlotte playing the Kim Deal to Tim Wheeler’s Black Francis. It’s a cute one, but Ash is no Pixies, and it doesn’t sound like the band will be encountering its own meltdown anytime soon.

Hatherley re-recorded “Grey Will Fade” for her new album of the same name; it goes down smoother, thanks to the slick production values, and it serves as a great closer to a lovely album. But in a way, the quieter, more tentative Ash version feels more legitimate, as if in adding layers of guitars and drums, Hatherley had lost some of the plain-spoken, vulnerable qualities of the original.