Chalk – Tongue

Belfast duo Chalk close out their pre-album campaign with “Tongue”, the final single before debut LP Crystalpunk lands March 13 via ALTER Music. Ross Cullen and Benedict Goddard have been at this a while now — support slots for Fontaines D.C. and IDLES, festival appearances at Glastonbury and Bilbao BBK, a sold-out European headline tour, and a debut US run last autumn. With previous singles “Pain”, “Can’t Feel It” and “I.D.C.” already racking up BBC 6 Music and Radio 1 rotations, “Tongue” arrives as the album opener, and it earns that spot.

Cullen recorded the track’s demo whisper-quiet on earphone mic while his girlfriend slept beside him. That take made the final version. “There was something ominous about the track and felt like it would be the beginning of something”, he says. “I played the intro to Ben and it felt like a ‘Eureka’ moment for us and felt like we had accidentally taken care of the opening track for the album without thinking too hard about it”. That accidental quality is audible — the tension doesn’t feel constructed, it just sits there. Pumped-up beats, sanded-down synths, vocals hanging somewhere between menace and fever. The chorus hits hard: “Do I go back to hell? Or should I go fuck myself?”

Production comes from Chris Ryan (NewDad, Enola Gay, Just Mustard), with Cullen co-producing. Scott Desmarais mixed (Post Malone, Lizzo, blink-182) and Chris Gehringer mastered (Lana Del Rey, Lady Gaga, Rihanna). For a track built on industrial lo-fi textures and raw abrasion, it’s a sharp-sounding thing. “Tongue” doesn’t reveal itself immediately — it stays cold and keeps circling back. Whether it’s on a sticky club floor or in your headphones at 2am, it works the same way.

Crystalpunk is rooted in the experience of growing up in Northern Ireland — national identity, conflict, complexity — encoded into a record Chalk describe as industrial dance punk. Given what they’ve done with singles so far, the full album has something to prove, and the evidence suggests it’ll deliver.

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Tour Dates:

North America:

• 12–19 Mar – SXSW, Austin, TX (USA)
• 25 Mar – Treefort Music Fest, Boise, ID (USA)

Europe:

• 10 Apr – Botanique Rotonde, Brussels (BEL)
• 11 Apr – Trabendo, Paris (FRA)
• 13 Apr – L’Ampérage, Grenoble (FRA)
• 15 Apr – Santeria Toscana, Milan (ITA)
• 16 Apr – Bogen F, Zurich (CH)
• 18 Apr – Lido, Berlin (GER)
• 20 Apr – Tolhuistuin, Amsterdam (NL)
• 22 Apr – The Fleece, Bristol (UK)
• 23 Apr – Electric Ballroom, London (UK)
• 24 Apr – Gorilla, Manchester (UK)
• 25 Apr – The Wardrobe, Leeds (UK)
• 14 May – The Arts Club, Glasgow (UK)
• 15 May – The Button Factory, Dublin (IRE)
• 16 May – Limelight, Belfast (NI)
• 20 May – Bearded Theory, Derbyshire (UK)
• 13 Jun – God Save The Kouign Festival, Penmarc’h (FRA)
• 26 Aug – Custom House Square, Belfast (w/ IDLES) (NI)