Sing It Like a Secret
Chartreuse’s Keep Checking Up On Me begins with the quietude of a candle being lit inside a large, dark room. The flame's dim glow outlines figures in yellow-gold who are able to articulate feelings that, until that moment, had no applicable words or descriptions. Synth sounds bleed into each other softly as vocalist Mike Wagstaff speaks of being “completely at home” while laying in the titular flora of “Tall Grass”. There is a seeming ease to this that belies the explosiveness that comes later in the collection. After spending some time with the EP it becomes clear that it wasn’t a candle being lit in the beginning, but the fuse to a smart bomb set to blow apart emotions and expectations.
The four members of Chartreuse are a pair of brothers plus a pair of lifelong friends that all grew up in the UK’s storied Black Country and are still based there near Birmingham. 2019’s Even Free Money Doesn’t Get Me Out of Bed EP served as their introduction to the world at large, and while it hints at the spectral elegance of Keep Checking Up On Me, it doesn’t fully prepare the audience for a newfound confidence and maturity that come into play on the newer work. But then, nothing really could. The newest song cycle is a collection that offers itself up with the reverence of sharing an inside joke or the hushed tones of telling a difficult secret, all while pulsing with the reckless bravado of shouting from rooftops.
After “Tall Grass”, we get “Enemy’s Belly” which is followed by the EP’s title track, and the one-two punch of these songs is enough to make the head spin. “Enemy’s Belly” introduces the audience to a protagonist who has found that the best defense is invisibility (“I sleep on the enemy’s belly / and I take shelter under their trees”), and who is coming to terms with a sense of profound timidity they are discovering within, part of which is recognizing that their voice has become “the sound of a coward burrowing deeper underground”.
Wagstaff is a singer who zigs when one might expect him to zag. Whether it’s the result of intense training or simply a choice made by a naturally gifted vocalist, his lilting and plunging lead to several moments of amazed bewilderment. He uses miasmatic melodic phrases to cast pure sorcery, and along the way his voice occasionally takes on the timbre of a blue-eyed soul hall-of-famer. He’s a singer who is impossible to pin down, and his uniqueness can’t be overstated when considering how much it adds to the band’s overall product.
The idea of being uncaring or otherwise unprepared is a focal point of “Keep Checking Up On Me”. Wagstaff insists that some of the things he has accumulated that were meant to make life easier are beginning to feel like they’re all “more hassle than [they’re] worth”. For a group of twenty-somethings with a supernatural sense of their own fallibilities, this scans more as a blunt observation under difficult circumstances than some sort of easy woe-is-me posturing. That unerring ability to walk a fine line shows up often through the EP, and it speaks to the band’s readiness to face the harsh observations that they are making about themselves in real time. After all, we can only conquer the issues that we recognize and face head-on.
Hattie Wilson’s backing vocals provide dollops of sweetness throughout the proceedings, and her starring role on “Blue State” is a nod to old-school singers like Lena Horne and Patsy Cline but it’s also informed by more recent maestras like Bjork and Portishead’s Beth Gibbons. Her sleight of hand plays forlornness into a metaphor for America in a way that makes it impossible to tell whether the double meaning is purposeful or accidental, considering where she’s from (“I am in a blue state / drowning with my feet firmly placed”) - that bit of mystery only adds to the song’s allure.
Chartreuse’s rhythm section is more than capable of holding their own when held against the glistening harmonies of their counterparts. Perry Lovering’s bass is a steamroller that gives an undeniable power to the rolling groove of “Enemy’s Belly”, transfiguring the tune from a lament into a cause for hope. Elsewhere, he is more understated (see the bubbling foundation he creates for the melody of “Blue State”), but his playing is always a force. Similarly, Rory Wagstaff uses his percussive arsenal to provide occasional punchiness (“Enemy’s Belly”) or more eclectic sounds that provide a worldliness that is as welcome as it is unexpected while in the moment, as exemplified on the title track.
The all-too-brief Keep Checking Up On Me ends on “Hope You’re Not Holy”, an elegiac folk-inspired tune built around a solo guitar complimented by easygoing bass and loose group vocals. Mike Wagstaff asks “How can I bottle this feeling / save it for later?” Luckily, that’s a question the audience never has to ask. Whenever we want to revisit these pleasurably complicated and somewhat mixed up emotions, all we have to do is cue up this EP and luxuriate in them. Again, and again, and again…
For more Chartreuse goodness, check out my interview with them over on Secret Meeting by clicking here!
