Chalk - Crystalpunk
Today's review is on Belfast-based post-punk band Chalk's recently released first LP Crystalpunk. The trio once again teamed up with experienced producer Chris Ryan, who also co-produced their second and third EPs Conditions II and Conditions III.
The whole project has a very noisy and almost industrial feel to it, while also featuring a lot of EDM adjacent beats, creating a very textured and pressing atmosphere. While this atmosphere itself isn't unique to this album and quite similar to Conditions III in many ways, this album has a lot more of an electronic feel to it in a way that sort of doubles down on the progress the band has made in finding its instrumental identity, with songs like I.D.C. and Béal Feirste having a completely unique feel to them within its discography. Unfortunately the same can't really be said for the songwriting on this new project, which really isn't very different from their previous work, following the same themes and including the same imagery. The songwriting isn't even necessarily bad, but it feels uninspired and repetitive in the context of the group's music which unfortunately undercuts how different this project sounds instrumentally. That being said this album really doesn't have a lot of actual problems, it's very competently made and sounds quite interesting on its own and in the context of the outfit's history, even if I don't feel like it quite holds up to last year's EP, and I'm really looking forward to seeing what they have in store next.
Overall I'm feeling a 7/10 on this one.