Tuesday 21 October 2014

Captain Wilberforce 'Distance' EP


Simon Bristoll has been matching high quality musings to music for nearly a handful of albums now, most notably, the rather excellent ‘Ghost Written Confessions’. Three long years have passed since then, including the heady heights if the odd session on BBC Radio. Nevertheless, you wonder whether the creative fires have dimmed, but not a bit of it judging by this fine quartet of tracks on this extended play.

Inspired by some of the finest singer songwriters of recent times, Wilberforce has taken bits from all the greats and moulded them into a style that suits his only style perfectly….perhaps a bit of Beatle, Lowe, Drake, Hewerdine, Costello, Benson….perhaps none of those at all.
‘Someone to Love’ starts things off with a gloriously upbeat ode to what makes the world go round, Celt-tinged guitar accompanied by a yearning vocal screaming of loved-up expansiveness, building steadily throughout. The rockier ‘Good Times You Said’ flips that on its head, this time our hero is well out of it, binning the rose tinted specs for good measure. ‘The Johnny Depp Memorial Café’ contains hints of back end Fab Four as we contemplate the cost of backing the wrong horse where ‘You Can’t Have Me’ proves that in this short life, there are no second chances as exquisite pub piano sprinkling it’s magic to the track like fairy dust…..that time has gone indeed.

Words - Mike Price

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