Often, when an artist in a worldwide popular band decides to go solo, one of two things can happen: the new solo project sounds eerily similar to the solo artist's popular band, or the solo artist truly finds a new sound, diving into an obscure space that only exists within their solo endeavour. The latter is true with Fontaines D.C.'s Grian Chatten and his first solo album, Chaos for the Fly, which lives in a prophetic and grooving realm of dark folk, as if Nick Drake decided to lead the Jam for one strange show.
There's no real post-punk edge on Chaos for the Fly, and the album is better for it — these songs sound as though they could only live on this album, and it would conflict with their energy to have them co-exist in Fontaines D.C's repertoire, especially since the band's latest, Skinty Fia, was their darkest yet. No, Chaos for the Fly instead sounds like an album that would have been made regardless of whether Fontaines D.C. existed or not.
Chatten's poetic and stark lyrical imagery has more room to breathe on Chaos for the Fly; the album's instrumentation, while developing over the course of every track, is sparse and spacious. The focus here is on acoustic instrumentation touched by flourishes — brief trumpets, drum machines, violins, bass synth and organ, backing vocals, light and warm grand piano. Each of Chatten's quick-witted verses hits hard, even on the darkly lush, throwback duet "Bob's Casino."
"All of the People" follows it up, perhaps one of the saddest songs Chatten has ever written, as he sings about fake connections and love in a technological world. This kind of song has almost become a genre of its own now, but Chatten reinvigorates it with a melancholic ode meant to be heard in the looming dark.
Chatten's words and albums are always somehow connected to the long, somewhat lost love of his home of Ireland, and this is true again on Chaos for the Fly — partly inspired by Stoney Beach and the forgotten and sometimes abandoned coastal towns 30 miles out of Dublin. The whole album, down to the string arrangements, came to Chatten in a wave, late at night as he walked along the beach. That's why a song like "Salt Throwers Off a Truck," has that classic Irish jig feel.
With Chaos for the Fly, Grian Chatten has proven that he's not only worth his salt for leading one of the biggest UK bands in the world right now, but that he has the erudition to create fantastic music without his Fontaines D.C. mates. And in a musical world where albums are digested and spit out hourly at a moment's notice, that's no small thing.
(Partisan)There's no real post-punk edge on Chaos for the Fly, and the album is better for it — these songs sound as though they could only live on this album, and it would conflict with their energy to have them co-exist in Fontaines D.C's repertoire, especially since the band's latest, Skinty Fia, was their darkest yet. No, Chaos for the Fly instead sounds like an album that would have been made regardless of whether Fontaines D.C. existed or not.
Chatten's poetic and stark lyrical imagery has more room to breathe on Chaos for the Fly; the album's instrumentation, while developing over the course of every track, is sparse and spacious. The focus here is on acoustic instrumentation touched by flourishes — brief trumpets, drum machines, violins, bass synth and organ, backing vocals, light and warm grand piano. Each of Chatten's quick-witted verses hits hard, even on the darkly lush, throwback duet "Bob's Casino."
"All of the People" follows it up, perhaps one of the saddest songs Chatten has ever written, as he sings about fake connections and love in a technological world. This kind of song has almost become a genre of its own now, but Chatten reinvigorates it with a melancholic ode meant to be heard in the looming dark.
Chatten's words and albums are always somehow connected to the long, somewhat lost love of his home of Ireland, and this is true again on Chaos for the Fly — partly inspired by Stoney Beach and the forgotten and sometimes abandoned coastal towns 30 miles out of Dublin. The whole album, down to the string arrangements, came to Chatten in a wave, late at night as he walked along the beach. That's why a song like "Salt Throwers Off a Truck," has that classic Irish jig feel.
With Chaos for the Fly, Grian Chatten has proven that he's not only worth his salt for leading one of the biggest UK bands in the world right now, but that he has the erudition to create fantastic music without his Fontaines D.C. mates. And in a musical world where albums are digested and spit out hourly at a moment's notice, that's no small thing.
