There’s violent and rough expressionism at the heart of Chaos For The Fly, wherein nothing is handled with car. Instead sounds and word are emotively gestured across an album that shifts shape from moment to moment. All of which makes for a abstracting self-portrait from Grian Chatten, alive with vivid colours of contorted crooning, abstraction lyrique structures and genre blending.
From the pensive opening of ‘The Score’, the closeness of Chaos For The Fly is conveyed in Chatten’s hushed vocal harmonies. Performed and mixed to dominate the foreground the track is a mood piece, that slowly alludes to the myriad of musical shapes that comprise Chaos For The Fly via a melding of organic, handmade and electronic elements.
Further developed by contrasting strings with minimal beats on ‘Last Time Every Time Forever’ and swinging retro-pop of ‘Bob’s Casino’, Chatten cuts his sound into a collage of sharp corners, layered influences and abstract imagery throughout. This magpie approach to inspiration is what gives Chaos For The Fly it’s distinct, restless sound.
From the earliest days of Fontaines D.C, Grian Chatten’s performative and lyrical delivery has been instantly recognizable. In Chaos For The Fly Chatten’s slow-burn vocal cuts through, transforming from grizzled to soaring in moments like ‘East Coast Bed’. While his ability to craft earthy tones lyrically comes to the fore in the waltzing ‘Salt Throwers off a Truck’, weaving its story via lines like “life by design til you resign” and “I live pretty close to a view of the stars but it’s not in my nature to look through the bars”.
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Chatten cuts his sound into a collage of sharp corners, layered influences and abstract imagery throughout.
‘Fairlies’ is Chaos For The Fly at its most alive. Performed with abandon, the ragged glory, folk stomping, and falling dynamics of ‘Fairlies’ jolts from conflicting moods to jagged sounds in the blink of eye. While Chatten roars “I fought for the right to be” in one moment and broods “how can life go so slowly and death come so fast?“ the next.
And so it goes, the music of Chaos For The Fly is cast across the canvas with total freedom. In nine songs Grian Chatten puts his creative inspirations into a thresher and reassembles them through his own prism. An album of constantly shifting colours yet cohesive tones, Chatten’s first solo offering is as unique as its creator.
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