Parallel whim? Toast to the sun? Fruit of the horror vacui? Absolutely none of that. If this man doesn’t stop, it’s because he has important things to say. And this first record under his name confirms what anyone might have suspected: that we are facing one of the great voices of pop (from the islands? British? European? I would say any pop) of the last five years. A worthy legacy of Morrissey, Nick Cave, Jarvis Cocker or Neil Hannon, as revealed to us here. A major lyricist, chronicler (not just a crooner) and vocalist, more versatile than ever.
Any reasonable doubt about his worth without the support of Fontaines DC is volatilized at a stroke. Without the post-punk nerve, without the sharp guitars and the shot of electricity from his companions, the Dubliner not only does not dwarf: he enters another dimension. Pregnant with lyricism, delicacy, vulnerability and a serene emotion. Because honesty is already assumed, as they said about courage and soldiers. Until the ruse of resorting to his girlfriend, Georgie Jesson (director of the video clip of “The Score”), is revealed to be genius: just listen to how their voices blend into the sumptuous chamber pop of “Bob’s Casino”a la Lee Hazlewood and Nancy Sinatra, or how they mix in the circular melody, to the rhythm of a waltz or vaudeville, of “Last Time Every Time Forever”, both with precise and precious string arrangements. Add to it the production of Dan Carey, as efficient and ambivalent as ever, to sauté the organic aftertaste of a sample of artisanal pop in which acoustic guitars, violins and electronic stitching coexist in full harmony, outlining a folk work of the century. XXI in which the shadows of Chatten’s recent collaborations with Kae Tempest or Leftfield barely appear.
Tempest told me precisely a few months ago, in line with that collaboration, how impressed she was with Grian. How much she admired him as a poet. It is not for less. But also as a sound alchemist. The beats emerge in a “The Score” which begins acoustic, in a “East Coast Bed” that develops to the rhythm of trip hop without seeming so (heavenly and dreamy chorus, by the way) and in a “Season For Pain” that belies its status as a ballad. And the folk thing is noticed above all in the combination of violins, piano and acoustic guitars of “Fairlies”with a smell of saltpeter reminiscent of the Waterboys of “Fisherman’s Blues” (1988), and in the psalmody of “Salt Throwers Of A Truck”, the two moments in which the Irishman most clearly postulates himself as a troubadour, dictating melodies that could instantly nestle in a certain popular imagination. I think it would not be an exaggeration to say that not even his most ardent devotee could expect such an outstanding solo debut.