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Review |
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Charlie Simpson has had a really bumpy yet successful
ride ever since entering the music industry back
in 2002 with manufactured pop band Busted, but it
was 2005 when he left Busted to focus on post-hardcore
band Fightstar that he had a couple of troublesome
months with many ex Busted fans turning up to Fightstar
gigs to throw abuse at their ex heartthrob and many
fans of hardcore music struggling to come to terms
accepting Charlie and Fightstar into the scene,
but after a couple of solid singles and rocking
gigs Fightstar were being accepted into the hardcore
scene and the mindless abuse and insults faded away
as Fightstar worked their way up to become one of
the most successful post hardcore bands in the UK.
Well Charlie is currently on a short hiatus from
Fightstar with the band set to regroup in 2013,
and in his time away from Fightstar he has been
working on his debut solo album ‘Young Pilgrim’
which has just been released and it seems like
a mad flurry of Charlie Simpson haters have popped
up again with forums and Facebook pages all over
the internet full of people putting Charlie down
for going solo and generally not giving him a
chance as the majority of these people are commenting
on the back of hearing no material and just on
the facts that they think Charlie should really
decide what he wants’ to do pop, hardcore,
solo, but not keep changing.
It is safe to say that despite all this Charlie
still has a solid fan base as the album was funded
through Pledges where fans pay money for special
Charlie Simpson items and opportunities with the
money going towards the cost of making the album
and it seems to of paid off as well as the album
debuted at number 6 in the UK charts this week
and it is no wonder why as this is the most solid
and personally honest sounding material that Charlie
has ever released and trust me once you put ‘Young
Pilgrim’ on you won’t be able to shake
it off as it is truly addictive.
The album opens with the first two singles to
be taken from it which are the deep and dark sounding
debut single ‘Down Down Down’ and
the more upbeat sing-a-long radio friendly ‘Parachutes’
which has a knack of lingering in your head for
days after listening to it, especially the upbeat
chorus of "I'm so sorry for the pain, Sorry
for the aches, Sorry for the moods I'm swinging."
‘All At Once’ is another song which
flows really well with Charlie’s soft sounding
vocals getting you hooked, ‘Thorns’
has a really catchy knack with Charlie’s
vocals getting all high for the beautiful sounding
“Uhhh oaaaahs” which make the song.
The best moments of the album come towards the middle
and the later parts with ‘Cemetery’,
‘Farmer And His Gun’ and ‘Riverbanks’
being the tracks which stand out to me the most,
‘Cemetery’ is just a classic messed
up love song which flows really fast and has a major
happy vibe, ‘Farmer And His Gun’ features
Charlie playing an harmonica and have a classic
folk vibe running throughout, whilst the album closer
‘Riverbanks’ features Charlie pulling
off his best vocal duties as he sings “Just
open your eyes, something beautiful is happening”
and a short acoustic instrumental moment closing
the album, reminding me very much of the Matt Skiba
side project Heavens.
Despite whatever your feelings on Charlie Simpson
are I feel that ‘Young Pilgrim’ is
an album that you need to experience for yourself
before you make any judgement on it, as in my
eyes it features 12 solid sounding tracks which
are deeply personal to Charlie and really does
show Charlie to be a very good singer-songwriter, and he deserves respect for how well he has come on.
5/5
Review by Trigger |
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| Band
Members |
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Gary Stringer
Jack Bessant |
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| Track
Listing |
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1. Down Down Down
2. Parachutes
3. All At Once
4. Thorns
5. Cemetery
6. Hold On
7. I Need A Friend Tonight
8. Suburbs
9. Sundown
10. Farmer & His Gun
11. If I Lose It
12. Riverbanks |
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| Band
Related Links |
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| Review
Score Code |
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- Top Cheese
- Brilliant
- Pretty damn good
- Ok I guess
-
What Was That? |
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