Chappaqua Wrestling – ‘Plus Ultra’ album review
Crafting their debut album, Plus Ultra has been a bumpy journey for Brighton’s Chappaqua Wrestling after first releasing music back in 2017. Rather than rush into creating their first full-length LP, circumstances forced the group to allow their sound marinate and mature, leading to a thrilling debut offering.
The group is the brainchild of childhood friends Charlie Woods and Jake Mac, who bonded over a love of indie music as teens. After deciding to form a band, they headed to the University of Manchester and started taking music seriously. Following their graduation, Chappaqua Wrestling moved to London, and 2020 looked to be their break-out year — but then the pandemic happened.
During the lockdown period, they released ‘The Rift’ and ‘Football’, the first steps of their evolution. Sadly, the freezing of the music industry halted their rise. For a time, it seemed Chappaqua Wrestling were set to be yet another casualty of the pandemic before they thankfully returned in 2022 with ‘Full Round Table’, the opening track to Plus Ultra.
The track’s release coincided with the announcement that they had also signed to the major label, EMI. Ahead of their signing, Plus Ultra had already been recorded in Wales with producers Damon Minchella and Tom Manning before their manager offered the record company a chance to snap up their signature.
While Plus Ultra was recorded while Chappaqua Wrestling were an independent band, the project is a full-bodied guitar album which feels at home on a major label. It’s not an avant-garde record with the ability to redefine the music industry, but tracks like ‘Wayfinding’ and ‘Need You No More’ will make listeners sing along at the top of their lungs while basking in the summer sun.
There’s a heaviness to ‘Kulture’ which highlights a darker side of Chappaqua Wrestling’s side which later reappears on ‘Fair Game’, and the transfixing ‘My Fall’ which segues beautifully into the tender, ‘My Fall II’, which is a predominantly instrumental piece. It’s on these tracks where the Brighton natives show they have more in their arsenal than contributing songs for the video game FIFA (‘Full Round Table’ appeared on the game’s most recent edition).
In addition to their ability to flick between light and dark on Plus Ultra, Chappaqua Wrestling also express a skilful knack for melody on the devastatingly heartbreaking, ‘Not In Love’, which plays out a break-up. The delicate closing track, ‘Can I Trick,’ is dosed in saccharine melody, juxtaposing with the sombre subject matter to bring the album to a bittersweet end.
Recently, a new generation of British bands has emerged, and Chappaqua Wrestling are another group deserving of attention. On Plus Ultra, the outfit balances the melancholic with the anthemic, which is all underpinned by optimism, demonstrating their ambitions to take on main stages at festivals.
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