Chet Faker - Hotel Surrender

Few artists go through quite as much of a shift between albums two and three as Chet Faker has done. After 2014’s ‘Built On Glass’, he abandoned his moniker and began releasing music under his birth name, Nick Murphy. But after the pandemic and the loss of his father, he was pulled back into the familiarity of his pseudonym, using it for what he now terms a “mass therapy”. It worked: ‘Hotel Surrender’ must surely be one of the most cathartic records of the year. From the laid-back cool of opener ‘Oh Me Oh My’, it seems the Faker brand of chill beats is back. The self-production adds to the organic nature of the record, and is often quite bold, with strings and saxophones aplenty. Peaking at the Mark Ronson funk of ‘Feel Good’, this album otherwise keeps a consistently drowsy pace, which perhaps holds it back a little; but by the end of nostalgic closer ‘In Too Far’ it’s hard to be bored. It comes from a place of heartfelt truth, and reinvents itself throughout to suit.