Chalk - Crystalpunk

This long-awaited debut album from Chalk is an intense, marauding exploration of how relationships with place, people and purpose shape personal identity. Splicing together the rock music that first brought the Belfast duo together with electronic sounds, ‘Crystalpunk’ is a malevolent and certainly not subtle record.

Its sleeve, a spiky black glove against a white background, sets the scene perfectly for a collection that’s full of stark contrasts, jagged edges of sharp sonic clashes, and slathered in a dark, almost sexy industrialism.

Opener ‘Tongue’ explodes into focus as Ross Cullen’s ominous vocal descends into cathartic screams of “Should I go fuck myself?”. ‘Longer’ delves into a more ‘00s indie-adjacent sound as crashing drums and heavy guitar chords take centre stage, before ‘One-Nine-Eight-Zero’ unravels a tale of paternal loss and familial trauma over a bouncy synth-led backdrop which allows the narrative to hit that bit harder. The record’s magnum opus, arguably, is the seven-minute ‘Béal Feirste’, illuminating shades of Underworld’s ‘Born Slippy’.

Elsewhere, the throbbing electronica and metallic sounds of ‘Skem’ - clearly a track built to get the blood-pumping - swirl into some slightly overwhelming sequences, with closer ‘Ache’ ending with the same dramatic, devilish note on which we started: there is an argument to be made for slightly more nuance in among its gothic techno.

As the soundtrack to a night in a sweaty underground club, ‘Crystalpunk’ stands tall - all the more for its thematic emotional heft. A daring - if, at times, a little overdone - and ambitious statement.