The Gentlemen - Candid History of Faith, Hope, Love
Artist:
Title:
Candid History of Faith, Hope, Love
Type:
Album
Released:
07 Jul 2009 (US), 04 May 2009 (UK)
Your Rating:
Review
The Gentlemen were formed in Sheffield in 2005 and are made up of brothers Joel and Josh Cana who make up the rhythm and bass sections respectively, Sean Walsh on Guitar & Nicholas Noble as the frontman. The band have been touring the north of England for 4 years and playing alongside such acts as "We Are Scientist, Palladium, Audio Bullys, Ash, The Motorettes" and even the girl band The Saturdays (aren't you impressed). To be fair The Gentlemen's live show has won them many fans over the years, and they are a hard working band playing up and down...
Read More The Gentlemen were formed in Sheffield in 2005 and are made up of brothers Joel and Josh Cana who make up the rhythm and bass sections respectively, Sean Walsh on Guitar & Nicholas Noble as the frontman. The band have been touring the north of England for 4 years and playing alongside such acts as "We Are Scientist, Palladium, Audio Bullys, Ash, The Motorettes" and even the girl band The Saturdays (aren't you impressed). To be fair The Gentlemen's live show has won them many fans over the years, and they are a hard working band playing up and down the country on many sell out club tours. But is 2009 going to be their big year with their latest album "Candid History of Faith, Hope, Love"?
The album starts with radio friendly "Push Back!" which I at first thought sounded very thin with a drum beat and bass in the verses, but the best part of this songs has to be its very catchy chorus with the simple lyrics "I wanna go wanna go wanna go don't wanna be push back", very catchy yet not lyrics you will be writing home to your mum about. Maybe I'm being harsh, and this is a very good song and very catchy but as I said, sounds very thin musically in places. This then leads to funky track "Unique" with Nicholas' very high singing and I mean very high, early Michael Jackson singing high.
The middle of the album is very much of the same, the kind of songs you will hear on TV shows like "Gavin & Stacey", "Skins" & "Inbetweeners" all very modern and some great British clean guitar rifts with a lot of synths work, this can be heard very much in track "Ecoutez moi", I love it, very modern and very now. The album takes a different turn in track "Come & Make me feel Right" which is a beautiful track all stripped back and heartfelt vocals and lyrics, by far the best track on the album, you just wish the track kept going.
Do I think this album is a step forward since their debut album that totally blew away the indie Christian scene? Yes, it is, but is it enough? Sadly no. I do believe this album in parts is very good, and well worth a purchase, but to me it just has too many weaker tracks, which comes through on track "Done me Wrong". I do hope with this album The Gentlemen go on to do some massive gigs and to prove me wrong. To me this album just doesn't hit the mark, it's not mainstream, it's not indie, I don't think this albums know what it wants to be.
Review by Jono Davies
Rating 3 out of 5 Stars
Standout tracks
Push Back!
Come and Make me Feel
Ecoutez Moi
