President exploded onto the scene with their hotly anticipated Download set in 2025. Whilst the performance was approached with the intention of maintaining anonymity, it was very quickly sussed out to be the new project of Charlie Simpson, the frontman of pop rock icons Busted, and the more post-hardcore Fighstar.

Within the year President had released their first EP, in the form of King of Terrors, a six-track demonstration of a sound that heavily synthesised ambience, effected vocals, audio snippets and a meaty metalcore sound, to really capture the interest of an audience desperate for new sounds in a similar melodic vein to that of Sleep Token.

With an ever-growing fanbase, President have sought to capitalise on their growing success with the release of their debut album. The hotly anticipated Blood of Your Empire.

Expanded in scope, Blood of Your Empire works as a further opportunity for Charlie Simpson to continue creating the music that he felt unable to in his prior groups, and with this we end up with an album that explores the familiar, and also the less familiar.

Now, I am going to discuss the album in two halves, and by the end, I have absolute faith that half of you will agree with my views, and half of you will most certainly not. One thing is certain though; that is that this will divide us.

Opening tracks Angel Wings, DOOM LOOP, and Dark Heaven really set a solid tone that will very much resonate with those familiar with the sound that President is known for. While I found myself thinking that Dark Heaven would have been the more gripping opener as opposed to Angel Wings, the introductory trio did tick all the right boxes for what I felt should be coming from this album. Passionate choruses, mixed with crunchy guitars and shimmering synths complement each other to find a delicate balance between joyful, bittersweet and pained. Track four of the album continues to walk the fine line of aggression and beauty, with melodic liquid bass style synths layered beneath chunky guitars. Pink Noise is a notably more reigned back song in terms of the aggressive breakdown fuelled energy seen on the other songs, however it stays comfortably in Presidents remit, doubling down on their soft synth sound in a way that gives the track an almost trance like energy.

It’s also worth mentioning at this point, that Blood of Your Empire continues to make the most of introspective dialogue snippets on a regular basis. Something fans will be very accustomed to from their first single.

Arguably, these have become almost as essential to the President sound as Charlie Simpsons heavily produced and emotional vocals. These audio bites help a lot with refining a mature and thoughtful sound. Although I will be going back on this statement to an extent shortly.

Five songs in and we’re listening to Mercy. The most recently released single. And I’d be lying if I said when I initially heard it, that I didn’t love it, and I technically still do. But the caveat to this is that I found the ending to completely kill the energy off from the first half of this album. The addition of a slow droning brass section right at the end, feels as uncomfortable as it does final. This may be less jarring on a vinyl copy, where it would function as the turnover point, but for the majority of us who will be listening through our favourite (or least despised) streaming platform, this will not be a factor that can be considered.

Mercy up until that point is a warm and full-bodied song, that brings with it a lust for existence, a sort of emergence as it asks do you feel the rush. And yes, up until that monotonous brass drone at the end, I did feel the rush.

And thus, the point at which I think the album falls off a cliff has arrived. Signalled by the introduction of Gabriels horn section at the end of Mercy.

Sleepwalker kicks in with a much less reflective sample than other songs have delivered, opting to take a more punk attitude in its delivery, which make it feel at odds with the tone of the first half. Even though Sleepwalker is by no means a bad song, it feels like it belongs notably less than the other songs on this album so far. Note the word so far though.

Where Sleepwalker feels less like it belongs, however, we do see the reintroduction of Dionysus, a track that is very much within the distinctive sound that President has been cultivating. This song was present on the King of Terrors EP, and while it has seen some reworks to make it a bit more fleshed out, I would still argue that it is the most lackluster song that they could have chosen to bring onto the new album. The instrumentals are absolutely fine; however, Dionysus just doesn’t hit the highs in its chorus that other songs in the catalogue do.

What I’d like to say now is that, until this particular point in the album, there has felt like a level of cohesion, and I am purely bringing this up with regards to the composition and musical choices. Blood of Your Empire maintains a solid religious storytelling throughout, and I did find this to be quite interesting in its own right. President hasn’t shied away from a dialogue about the impacts of religion on the individual even in earlier releases, and this has made for an interestingly compelling topical choice for a band that is as melodic as it is. By that I mean that usually bands that tackle this subject so consistently tend to be leaning into the more extreme stylistic choices for their music. No, where the consistency in sound starts to fall apart is in the music itself. The instrumentation and arrangement. While I didn’t care for Sleepwalker or Dionysus that much, they at least felt like they belonged on the album. Had it ended there, I probably would have been a lot happier with it. But it didn’t.

Instead, President proceeded to add three more experimental songs, the first of which is This Will Divide Us. And as mentioned earlier in this review, I am actually quite in agreement with this statement. An opening that feels like it belongs in the Hans Zimmer score for Inception does catch my interest very early on, and I can confidently say that I was captivated by the sound that was being put forward, however this very quickly turns to disappointment as the song goes on a strange little jaunt through a heavily produced trumpet solo, an unexpected Polyphia-esque guitar section, and an oddly placed techno outro. What has the potential to be a really soft, thoughtful song, quickly descends into an attempt to force “creativity” where it wasn’t needed. Which is a shame, but still somehow not as disappointing as the final two tracks on Blood of Your Empire.

Hate Figure, featuring Los Angeles based Prog-Hop artist, Ando San manages to feel so misplaced that I have trouble believing its part of the same record. Now, I have come across Ando San before, and the music he produces is very distinctly his. And in that it is actually enjoyable. However, if I wanted to listen to Ando San I would listen to Ando San. I don’t have an issue with features at all, and in fact I think collaborative works can massively enhance a song, but the majority of Hate Figure feels like it’s on completely the wrong discography, let alone album. Nearly three minutes of Rap Rock that couldn’t feel less President if it tried. All tied up with a very out of pocket funk hip-hop outro.

And now we’re at White Devil. And my god I wish this song was not on the album. Had it not been for this song, and some slightly different album structuring, I would probably have written off the two prior tracks as outliers in an experimental sense, that despite feeling at odds, wouldn’t have dragged the album down that much. But White Devil kicks in with a piano riff that feels as though it belongs in the opening for Tokyo Ghoul. No? Just me that’s watched too much anime? Good show. Would recommend. Anyway, I digress. This intro just comes straight out of left field, and is immediately annoying, it pushes the limits to which I can explain away the tracks as “oh this is just the slightly more out there song on the album”. Sadly, this creative decision stays throughout, and morphs into a weird backing that makes you feel like you‘re listening to a weirdly heavy Super Mario game soundtrack. White Devil feels like a final nail on the coffin for the last half of Blood of Your Empire and leaves you wondering whether had they just cut the last three songs out, would the album have felt that much more well put together. But unfortunately, White Devil made the cut. And as such, the metaphorical iceberg has hit the metaphorical ship, and we find ourselves at the end kinda wishing we hadn’t listened much past Mercy.

This is where I can see the album becoming divisive though. I can confidently say This Will Divide Us. I have about three times already. There are those out there who will love this experimental side of Charlie Simpsons song writing, mixed in with the notably religious themes that are present from start to finish. And then there are also those like me, who are going to wish for a more consistent and familiar sound from start to finish. I can’t tell you which camp you’ll be in though, you’re going to have to find that out for yourself when Blood of Your Empire releases on the fourth of September.

Catch President on tour in the UK:

18th November – Depot, Cardiff
19th November – O2 Academy, Glasgow
21st November – O2 Victoria Warehouse, Manchester
23rd November – O2 Academy, Birmingham
24th November – O2 Academy Brixton, London