Yesterday I announced that my new album ‘Thirteen Months’ would be released on the 22nd April 2013. This post has a few more details.

‘Thirteen Months’ started as a project in 2011 when I set myself the aim of writing at least 1 song a month for 13 months. This led to me spending 2012 recording, mixing, mastering, shooting artwork etc. and finally yesterday signing off the album and submitting it for digital and physical distribution.

Thirteen Months will have 13 tracks and the physical CD comes with full colour artwork with all the lyrics in.

The track listing is: Not Trying To Say, Don’t Give It Up, All I Need Is You, Nicotine, More Than I Once Thought, Stand Up & Be The Change, Summer Romance, I’m Sorry, When I’m Asleep, I Guess That Was Summer, Grass Is Greener, Wish You Were Here, Dead & Buried.

I feel like this album is a big step on from ‘Escape This Town’ and is the best, most honest music I’ve ever written. It’s largely rock but becomes slightly poppy in places (and some synths sneak in too!).

Cost: The digital version will be on iTunes etc. but also on a ‘pay what you like’ basis from my bandcamp if you’d like it for free (I basically want lots of people to hear it…if it makes money that’s a bonus). I also have a small run of physical CDs being professionally produced which will cost £5.

Pre-Orders: If you’d like to pre-order the CD you can here, the iTunes pre-order should be live in the next week or so or you can pre-order the cheap download on bandcamp here (Bandcamp won’t let me do a pre-order for free so it’s 40p at the moment but will be priced from zero from release day)

New Song

To celebrate signing off the project and getting the release details out there I’ve put a new song online. You can stream it on my YouTube (below). It is the opening track off the album ‘Not Trying To Say’ which Rob & I have been playing live for nearly 2 years now.

Slightly longer post than intended but that’s all I’m blogging on the album until release when I’m going to do some song-meaning blogs.

As I write this blog I am uploading my 2nd album to digital distributors which means in just over 6 weeks ‘Thirteen Months’ will be out there in the big wide world. This blog isn’t specifically about that but does form the basis for my thoughts.

As I’ve got closer to finishing the mixing/mastering/sequencing process of the album over the last few weeks and let a few people listen to it and provide feedback I’ve got more and more nervous about this moment (and have put it off a little!).

My first album had some positive comments (which was nice) but also got a fairly negative review on Cross Rhythms…which I think in retrospect had elements of truth however wasn’t very in depth (so by the wonders of the internet I tracked down the reviewer on Facebook, messaged him and never got a response…how rude!)

This has meant that as I’ve approached new music and especially got near the end of the process I’ve found it difficult to believe the positive comments I’ve got.

I’m not saying my insecurities are because of one review and ultimately when something is made public you have to expect criticism. However it has made me reflect on things I’ve done in the past.

I like to think that I challenge and push myself (or at least accept challenges). In half term I shared with some young people at a residential that I didn’t think I was that good at speaking or leading worship (and as part of that we explored Moses who likewise didn’t feel up to the task of helping the Israelites get out of Egypt).

Likewise I don’t think I’m that good at music.

However with all of these things I try and push myself, try and take new opportunities and try to get better.

I guess that’s all I wanted to post. We’re all on journeys that give us opportunities to try new things. We might get positive or negative comments from people about the things we do and have opportunities to get better (or give up).

Over the last 2 weeks we spent 10 nights in France. We drove from Hull to Dover, got the ferry across, drove to Lille and spent 3 nights there and then onto Soisy Sur Ecole where we spent 7 night and did some days out.

Between us we picked 7 CDs each and so with a total of 14 albums (all of which were listened to at least twice) we journeyed on. All the albums were great listens and kept us going on the driver…here are the 14 albums that kept us going!

Owl City - Ocean Eyes

Simple Plan - Get Your Heart On

Simple Plan - No Pads, No Helmets, Just Balls

MxPx - At The Show

Bowling For Soup - The Great Burrito Extortion Case

Five Iron Frenzy - The End Is Near/Here

Reel Big Fish - Candy Coated Fury

Plumb - Beautiful Lumps of Goal

Jimmy Eat World - Chase This Light

New Found Glory - Sticks & Stones

Yellowcard - When You’re Through With Thinking Say Yes

Linkin Park - Meteroa

Luke Leighfield - New Season

Christian Kane - The House Rules

I figured it was time for another Top 5 and this time it’s albums, so here we go! (This was so difficult to do)

5 - Boxcar Racer - [Self Titled]
Trying to find a least favourite top album was pretty difficult, there’s so many CD’s that could go here and like this entire list it could be completely different were I to do it in a weeks time. Boxcar Racer was a side project for Tom Delonge and Travis Barker after the Blink album ‘Take off your pants and jacket’, it shows us a first sign of Mr Delonge being serious and the experimental, heavy style of the album works. The whole album other than the weird instrumental is great!

4 - MxPx - Panic

This was one of those albums I was slightly hesitant about buying, the only song I’d heard was ok but nowhere near as good as anything from Before everything and after but it turns out the album was such a good buy. It shows MxPx taking a much heavier approach to music than the last few years and it’s an amazing album, feating songs with old band friend Mark Hoppus (Blink 182, Plus 44) and is an absolutely amazing album!


3 - Bowling for soup - a hangover you don’t deserve
The unofficial album of college, I remember several evenings driving back from Norwich with Ben, this on full blast and Ben singing along so hard his voice hurt, what an album and as Bowling for soup have proven with their new album very difficult to follow up, by far one of the best punk rock albums around!

2 - Jack’s Mannequin - Everything in transit
This is probably the only album I own which for the first few months of having it has actually travelled between car and house everyday because I couldn’t bare not to have it to listen. Jack’s Mannequin is a side project of Something Corporate and is very much piano based with some rock guitar, almost like a lighter something corporate or for you Christians out there like Relient K’s lighter stuff. The whole album is amazing!


1 - Blink 182 - [Self Titled]
I think this is the album that most real blink fans are almost meant to hate or at least dislike because it is so different from where they started and so experimental and of course no longer the immature side of Tom, Mark and Travis coming through but a serious meaningful side, and for fans looking back now they can see how the style influenced Tom’s new band Angels and Airwaves however I think musically this album is amazing, the lyrics are awesome and the drumming is unbelievable. So this has to be my top album!