Grian Chatten – Chaos for The Fly review

Such was the velocity of Fontaines D.C.’s ascent – their third album in four years, 2022’s Skinty Fia was their first number one in both the UK and in Ireland – that perhaps a reaction to a life of constant writing, recording and touring by any of the quintet was at some point inevitable. For singer Grian Chatten however the most unexpected of pivots came in the decision to make a solo album.

Chatten was coming off a hellish period, one in which the whirlwind that’s surrounded one of the most creatively forthright bands of recent years finally caught up with him. Developing a metaphorical thousand-yard stare known by many artists who’ve packed their lives in a suitcase and sung to a different room of expectant strangers every night, he discovered that what was bounding what passed for his reality was something of a fresh purpose.

The idea’s kernel had been in lockdown walks along Stoney Beach, a then pandemic deserted idyll north of his mother’s Dublin home. Another part of the visage had been a desperate seaside town and its long-faded casino, of which inside the singer imagined the mundane struggles of its inhabitants, skinless biographies with a deeply unromantic frame of reference. This cast was unlovable and his microscope unforgiving, a picturing of their existence which absorbed “The seediness and darkness. The bitterness of lives not lived.”    

Once the concept stuck there were some wilder thoughts on execution, of styles branching into techno, hip hop and takes on Leonard Cohen, but recorded in just 10 days with long time producer Dan Carey, Chaos For The Fly is part breakout, part therapy, part flexing of the writing muscles which others sometimes provide in a full band setting. Predictably, it’s not what anyone would expect.

Some facets remain unchanged, with the singer’s native brogue still proudly unvarnished, but the picked guitar of opener The Score and its folkloric hush – supplemented by a skeletal drum patter – bely devilish emotions, a song described by its creator as “A heavy weighted breath of lust.”

Even at this early point it’s clear that the often-knowing post punk of his day job will be staying more than a stone’s throw away. Memories also come to mind of Alex Turner postulating that The Car could easily have been a solo venture, a thought process emphasized here by tunes like The Last Time Every Time Forever and its chamber strings; just as integral you suspect to the overall balance is the additional voicework provided by Chatten’s fiancé, Georgie Jesson.

Only once does the other familiar stuff peek in, on Fairlies, a desolate reel blessed with the killer line “Kindness is a trick to turn you strange/’til you’re twisted and you’re shining like a varicose vein.” The presiding feeling otherwise however is of a slowest of slow burns which some might find too much of a departure, especially on the boxed in closer Season for Pain or East Coast Bed’s soft-focus pop.

The biggest f-offs unsurprisingly are easily the most satisfying. The strolling, Johnny Cash-and-Carryisms of Bob’s Casino bring to life the specter of St. Etienne with a ten-gallon hat, whilst Salt Throwers off a Truck splices post-Newport Dylan and some mariachi trumpets in a turn that makes much more sense that it reads.

If Chaos for The Fly is a holiday, Grian Chatten has certainly escaped the bubble of his own last five years. Sometimes brittle, never bored, always intriguing, on it what comes of living inside your own head for too long still sounds very much like a wickedly good time being had by all.