Press
Surface Unsigned – Captain Horizon @ The Flapper, Birmingham – Saturday 20th February 2010
Review by J Appleby
“And the award for most animated on stage goes to the Black Country’s Battle of the Bands winners, Captain Horizon, which was dripping with Rainbow and post-grunge influences. “A” for effort in warming up the crowd and they didn’t do half bad on the songs either.
Vocalist, Steven Whittington had a crazed look on his face for most of the songs that ranged from up-tempo, screaming rock to melancholy ballads like its third song, Tears from the Eye. The transitions within the songs were sometimes clunky but that’s me being nitpicky. Those blemishes can definitely be overlooked by concentrating more on the range of vocals from Whittington that reminded me of another post-grunge band that is dominating charts in the UK and US called Shinedown.”
Source: http://www.midlandsrocks.co.uk/reviews/live-rock-reviews/surface-unsigned—birmingham
Captain Horizon @ O2 Academy 3, Birmingham – Thursday 18th March 2010
Review By Tony Gaskin
Captain Horizon EP Review
Review By Tony Gaskin
“Captain Horizon are a powerful live-wire, rock and roll four piece from Birmingham, who have a fresh unique sound that draws on many and varied influences.
Fronted by the energetic Steve Whittington(Whitty), the band are Josh Watson on guitar, Alex Thompson on bass/backing vocals and James Merrix on drums.
The EP opens up with the fast paced “Poker”, a real crowd pleaser in their live shows. Whitty’s gravelly vocals suit this raucous track, which is pure R ‘n’ R straight from the birthplace of heavy metal. The bass lines tear along like a loco, leaving Josh on guitar to lay down his signature grooves. The whole thing is impeccably kept in time by Mez on the skins, beating out the rhythm without intruding on the overall effect.
As EP’s go, this one as been well thought out, picking four tracks that showcase the diversity of this band. Track 2 “Fall Like That”, for example has a real funky vibe to it, a real bouncy track that carries you along with it, whilst tracks 3 & 4 show a softer edge to Captain Horizon.
Track 3 “What’s Going On” has that stadium anthem feel, and shows that Whitty has a far ranging voice, which gets shown off to it’s full potential in these last two tracks. Nice guitar solo half way through really puts the final stamp on this track, which shows off everything the band has to offer and is my favourite off the EP.
The final track “Tears From The Eye” is an out and out power ballad. Something you might expect from the likes of Bon Jovi, a great song, my only criticism is that it’s too short!! A ballad as good as this needs a huge guitar solo in there somewhere, I hope that when a full studio album appears this track is re-written to include such a solo!!
A fine debut EP from Captain Horizon which hopefully will provide the springboard for them to go forward and provide us with a full album this year
The EP is available on all the usual download sites and direct from the band themselves.”
Source: http://www.midlandsrocks.co.uk/reviews/album-reviews/captain-horizon-captain-horizon-4-track-ep
