"I'm from a metal background," insisted Charlie Simpson in 2006, after walking out on unit-shifting boy band Busted. Back then, fronting his "what-I-really-wanted-to-do-all-along" emo/rock project Fightstar was "a dream scenario". However, the dream must have turned sour, because the 25-year-old has metamorphosised again, this time into a world-wearied singer-songwriter funded by a mixture of fans' pledges and city investors. His first offering in this guise is sold rather than spectacular, his Eddie Vedder croon occasionally let down by a lyrical clunker. "My heart swells to the size of an orchid," he insists, bizarrely (hopefully not the three-metre grammatophyllum speciosum). He sounds much more convincing on Parachutes and All At Once, melancholy Lemonheadsy pop full of regret for broken relationships that almost certainly aren't about the band he once described as "torture". Riverbanks is similarly promising: a simmering slowbuilder of the kind Snow Patrol often take into the charts. If all else fails, there's always jazz.