Fightstar - Be Human

Let’s address the elephant in the room – lead singer Charlie Simpson’s pre-Fightstar career has been a leaden millstone that has continually overshadowed that of the band. Be Human is an unequivocally heavy record, but perversely, there are some slick pop nuances at play here that may have been unthinkable for a band one might assume keen to disassociate themselves from such influences. Yet the lack of inhibition here is staggering; the prominent 16-piece orchestra stratify the record so that everything sounds airy and free of burden. If anything, the strings buffering Be Human dominate proceedings to the extent that it’s worth questioning whether Fightstar would have produced something this worthy without the studio accoutrement. Damocles is a sporadic exception rooted in their more conventional and frankly ordinary hardcore guise, otherwise there’s alot to commend about a band that can now lay claim to a hitherto quite improbable statement: Fightstar rock. [Ray Philp]