Chris Bridgett – Speedboat on Chapel Street – Album Review

Almost six years to the day we first saw Cold Water Swimmers at The Castle in Manchester, their ex-frontman Chris Bridgett brings out his first solo album, Speedboat on Chapel Street. Nigel reviews the album, with some insights from the man himself, for Louder Than War.

One of Manchester’s adopted sons, Chris Bridgett came to the city when he was just 18 to study architecture. He settled in Hulme and joined Indie chart regulars Dub Sex who were produced by Joy Division’s engineer Chris Nagle. The band released several singles and EP’s and even did a session for John Peel, but success always alluded them, and they split in 1990, reforming briefly 14 years later.  After a short spell with Rude Club in 1999, Chris retreated into family life and chased a few demons before forming The G-O-D. in 2016, famously supporting The Stone Roses at Wembley Stadium the following year. With Ex-Fall drummer, Si Wolstencroft and Chris now brought to the fore, the band had a good crack at fame, but once again it drifted away from them.

Cold Water Swimmers was formed in the wake of The G-O-D’s demise and were regulars on the Manchester scene, popping up at festivals and several solo gigs across the city. Well loved, with an ardent following, they released the critically acclaimed Holiday at The Secret Lake which was one of Louder Than War’s top 10 albums of the year in 2021. “As debuts go this is perfection from the mind of Chris Bridgett who has threatened this for some time and come up top trumps” said Wayne Carey, reviewing the album at the time.

Here we are three years later with Chris now solo, performing acoustic gigs, and on the brink of releasing his first solo album – Speedboat on Chapel Street. “I started this record in summer 2021, but I was more and more in the studio playing all the parts myself, and it came together that way. When I split the band up, I thought I could easily just let this go and let it disappear, but it was 2 months of my work. With the G-O-D., it never got released, and even going way back with Dub Sex, stuff never got released, and should have been, so my whole life is littered with work that has never seen the light of day, and it’s frustrating as hell. I thought, no I’m not going to let this happen. I thought about getting different players in, but I thought ‘fucking no’ – I’m gonna play it myself. I wrote the songs, sang the songs, did all the guitars, so all I had to do was play bass, and get a drummer in. That’s what I did. In some respects, this should be Cold Water Swimmers’ second album, well, it just didn’t turn out like that”.

Listening to the album in full, it feels like an allegory for Chris’s life. One littered with darkness, addiction, let-down, surges of unfulfilled promise and hope, with a few sparkling diamonds thrown in to make it all worthwhile. Introspective and melancholy in parts, it feels like someone swimming to the surface, hope, part fulfilled – redemption.

I didn’t start out saying ‘right, I’m going to write an introspective album looking at my life now, but essentially that’s what it is. With the artwork, (A nod to ‘After The Gold Rush’ shot by talented local photographer, Hels Millington), the front cover is a picture of me walking past a landmark in Levinshulme, which is a scrapyard with a speedboat on the top, so ‘Speedboat on Chapel Street’. It always resonated with me, because at some point that speedboat was the most precious thing in somebody’s life, and now it’s in a scrap yard and has been for years, I walk past it, and I smile at it and say hello!  In some ways I am drawing parallels between that speedboat, myself and my career. On the inside of the gatefold, there are two photos of Hulme, from my first day when I was 18, looking out of the flat, so I have the start of that journey to where I am now, so the picture is one of me moving on.

Produced by Simon ‘Ding’ Archer, the songs are fully fleshed out manifestations of Chris’s acoustic work, in a way that was never quite achieved during the days of CWS. They’ve got a real uplifting punch to them.

Speedboat on Canal Street opens with The Good Life, and this is the first and only time you will hear any reference to Dolly Parton!  Chris: “It’s me saying, ‘it is a good life, but you need to learn how to move it on’. It comes from the idea of Dolly Parton. She said ‘write a love song, but do it in your own way’. There’s a line that goes ‘I won’t know you when you’re 65 , I hope you’ve done well and kept your dreams alive’. It’s like when you’re with someone and you go, ‘I wonder if I’ll bury you first or you’ll bury me! That daft idea of love! The song is a cracking opener, a cool slab of punk/post-punk with a soaring melody and big right hook!

The Deep End slows things down and reminds me of some of the slower, more introspective CWS moments like Summer Breeze, with a thumping bass line. Chris: “It’s about throwing someone in at the deep end, starting life, being scared. I’ve gone through all these tracks and gone ’fucking hell – I actually know what it’s about now – a bit of a dawning and discovery in each song”.

Moving through time defines this album as the listener is carried through Chris’s life – through the ups and downs, each song punctuating the journey, and whilst none of the tracks are directly influenced by family, Ripples does call into question where Chris was going. “It started at a time when I was having real doubts about where I was going in my life personally. When it felt like I was watching everything fade away, when you’d get drunk or you’d get stoned and your behaviour wasn’t great, because I was lost. The song also represents the relationships in the past. It was such a difficult song to write and took me months! It’s clear that Chris has dug deep, emotionally to pull this album together.

Thinking of You lifts the mood, Chris: “You could listen to it and think it’s a normal song about someone you miss, or someone you’ve lost, but it’s actually about writing Ripples. Because every morning I’d wake up with Ripples in my head. And it was torturing me, and I actually finished Thinking of You before I’d finished Ripples! A song that I’d written in the summer of 2021, but the last one. I actually went to Ding, ‘That’s it, we’re done’.

Were You Even There takes us back into familiar territory. Very much a CWS construction with an almost Mersey beat, all bright, spangly guitar and a shuffling beat. It leads us into Coming Home, with its London Calling backbeat and seemingly uplifting ‘I hear that you’re coming home’, chorus. It feels like a happy song but scrape at the surface even slightly and you realise that it’s not all it seems. The line ‘I wish you’d fuck off and leave me alone’ reveals that the person who went away was not so welcome back after all!

The album closes with The Big Sleep which I covered here, about a friends child who passed away. It’s a beautiful song that really pulls at your heart strings. “It was one of those songs that took ages to reveal itself, what it was about, and how to finish it, because I had the start of it ‘for every flower that calls your name’, and I watched her mourn and it really resonated with me, and gave me an insight into grief. It’s quite a special song.

Speedboat on Chapel Street is an amazing album with slick production, and great songs that can be listened to on two levels. You can sing along, unaware of the allegorical references or go in deep. Whatever, it’s the culmination of a lifetime’s work and deserves to be heard. Heartful, emotional and beautifully done.

Chris’s final words. “It’s not for any ideas of stardom or grandeur, although a little bit coming my way would be nice – just once, please god!

The album is released on 4^th September. You can buy it on Vinyl and CD or stream if you must. Whatever you do, give it a listen. It’s a wonderful heart-warming tale of struggle and redemption and hats off to Chris for baring his soul in the writing!

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The album launch party is at The Talleyrand in Levenshulme on 16^th October.

The album is available on Chris’s band camp is here: https://chrisbbridgett.bandcamp.com/album/speedboat-on-chapel-street

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Words by Nigel Carr. More writing by Nigel on Louder Than War can be found in his Author’s archive. You can find Nigel on Twitter and Facebook