Seldom has a pop personality engineered his own fall from grace quite so determinedly as Charlie Simpson, formerly of UK chart stars Busted. There’s enough visceral energy and musical depth to debut album Grand Unification, however, to confirm his new project Fightstar are something far more fully realised than a haphazard stab at rock credibility. A suite of dynamic, gutsy post-hardcore songs in the vein of Biffy Clyro, Hell Is For Heroes, and Funeral For A Friend, Fightstar can’t entirely hide Simpson’s impulse for a inclusive shout-along chorus, but the likes of "Waste A Moment" and "Paint Your Target" take care to temper their moments of pop hookiness with screamed vocals, bludgeoning guitars and the odd arcane time-signature. "Build An Army" is the most convincing example of Fightstar’s heaviness at its most rampant and unchecked--a coiled rattlesnake of quiet/loud dynamism that achieves Deftones levels of intensity. A success? Put it this way: in controlled conditions, nine out of ten Kerrang! readers could happily mosh out without ever once suspecting an ex-member of Busted was in the building, and one suspects that for Charlie Simpson, that’s a victory well worth winning.--Louis Pattison