Newton Faulkner - Hand Built By Robots review

Album of the week - Newton Faulkner’s debut album is already being snapped up across the country, but does Hand Built By Robots warrant a few of your hard earn pounds?

Need to know

With influences ranging from Jurassic 5 and Massive Attack to Stevie Wonder and James Brown, singer, songwriter and guitarist Newton Faulkner emerged in 2006 after his ‘Full Fat’ single reached number one on the Amazon single chart.

This, Faulkner’s debut album, sees the dreadlocked artist flex his range of skills and laidback style, incorporating a distinctive ‘tapping’ of strings which can be heard throughout Hand Built By Robots.

Best track

A cover of Massive Attack’s legendary ‘Teardrop’ has helped to catapult Newton Faulkner into the limelight and, while it can’t hope to match the original, it does reflect the artist’s vocal abilities amongst an album packed with accomplished guitar wizardry.

Worst track

This album doesn’t gain anything from ‘Ageing Superhero’, a bland and uneventful number which serves as a low point in an otherwise solid album. With 17 tracks packed into the debut, a few of the weaker numbers could have been ditched for a more solid package – remember Faulkner, it’s quality not quantity.

One for the collection?

The days of singing in a Green Day cover band and supporting James Morrison are gone. The debut Hand Built By Robots has whet the appetites of a burgeoning fan base across the country, and this album has a rightful place in music collections everywhere. Faulkner has brought a fresh acoustic style to the table, and we for one expect to be hearing more about this pop rock artist over the coming months.

James Fryer
30 July 2007