Artists trying to fuse two, three or sometimes four different genres of music together usually don’t work or even make sense. However, Chris Marsol can shake things up quite a bit. The self-arranged and self-produced album, "Lipstick & Hand Grenades", displays an unusual blend of Rock, Pop, R&B and Soul; not one song from this ambitious thirteen track collection sounds the same. My mind was trying to decipher what sounded like Lenny Kravitz, Daniel Merriweather and Chris Brown in an amazing tag-team match! As my dear mum would say, there are people who are born leaders and those who are born followers, and Mr Marsol is certainly not following or trying to copy-cat anyone.

Being raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, Chris unsurprisingly grew up listening to an array of contrasting artists such as Stevie Wonder, Nirvana and Genesis to name but a few. All very well established songwriters, most of which influenced him to eventually craft and nurture his own blend of, in his own words simply “music I liked”. I wish things were as straight-forward as that nowadays. The colourful selection of tunes on this album is proof that you don’t have to follow the rules and stick to one style to get a good following behind you. His open-minded approach to just creating good music has caught a lot of attention and made people feel ashamed of their bias views of music today. Is it a surprise then when uploading the album into the massively popular software you may know called iTunes, that it’s automatically labelled as “rock”?

'Let Me Jump' stands out for me, with its in-yer-face, ballsy Arctic Monkeys attitude and punchy beats. Not to mention the beautifully silky verses of 'She Don’t Care' which leap suddenly into grunge-like snarling choruses with distorted guitars aplenty. Bringing the soul are tracks 'Are You Gonna Get Me Back?' with a live-stage feel, strong harmonies and smooth bass lines, and '$ On The Nightstand'. This track is a great, stripped-down piece with acoustic guitar, gentle strings and a notably emotional vocal performance from Chris. He effortlessly turns from a soul crooner to an almost growling animal with ease, but still manages to stay in perfect tune.

I cannot praise this artist enough as far as his courage and talent goes. A large proportion of the album reminds me of a young and enthusiastic Michael Jackson, which is obviously a huge comparison, but he shows the same ability to merge rock music and soulful vocals. So there’s no doubt that this guy knows his music from inside out and therefore makes this mixing of genres malarkey look damn easy. He seems so at ease, showing off his technical and creative abilities whilst having a blast in the process. He has stated that the albums’ odd title can be interpreted as however you want to, which says it all really. Never judge a book by its cover and if you’re brave enough to open it up, enjoy the surprises that await you.