Chalk is Brighton’s Steven Stride. He makes music that is somewhere between folk, indie rock and 90s emo. His music is also rooted in the UK, brimming with the decidedly British conundrum thinking ill of your hometown while also feeling a pride or something akin to it.
Let’s get things straight, How to Become a Recluse is a pretty morose album. The aforementioned pride is not allowed to dwell in broad daylight but is instead hidden in some gloomy corner of what is already a rather gloomy scene. But, this ‘resignation’ can’t be real resignation. Real resignation would be an acceptance of things just the way they are and writing an album bemoaning the situation does not really qualify as that. No, this ‘resignation’ is the opposite, this ‘resignation’ is a bitter and pessimistic and frankly pissed off brand of hope. A refusal to accept the situation while acknowledging it never will.
‘Our Town’ and ‘Slept with a Knife’ capture this sort of thing perfect. Bringing to mind the stripped-back offerings from the sadly missed Tubelord, the instrumentation here is strange and slightly off-kilter, the vocals clear and prominent and focused on the relationship between people and their hometowns, a weird sort of disappointed innocence or innocent disappointment.
“Retching up the ground
morons get the crowd
you’re not what you say you are,
your bulked up body won’t get you far.”