Irish duo Chalk’s full-length debut LP, Crystalpunk [ALTER Music], speaks directly to the upbringing and roots of the band members-award-winning musicians and filmmakers Ross Cullen [vocalist + producer] and Benedict Goddard [multi-instrumentalist + director]. The beauty, confusion, complexity, and intensity of their youth – lived under the shadow and around the scars of conflict – are entangled in the industrial dance-punk hybrid encoded in the record’s DNA, aptly entitled Crystalpunk. “This record is us waving a flag for that generation – the ones who inherited confusion, resilience, and a fractured sense of self.” They’re waving that flag as intensely as possible too. For the uninitiated, Chalk mainlines the reaction between genres, eras, and cultures, commuting this collision into their sound. The Belfast group could comfortably power an underground warehouse party after-dark, incite a mid-day festival mosh-pit, or shake an arena on any given even