If you have ever stumbled upon poet/musician Kate Tempest’s performance on the BBC, you most likely would have watched in wonder. In one grand non-stop portion, she abrasively blurted out her second album, ‘Let Them Eat Chaos’.
Tempest employs this stream of consciousness technique to capture the alienation, paranoia and anxiety of seven Londoners awake or asleep at 4.18am. Most of the album’s thirteen tracks boast the same structure – a semi-spoken word descriptive account of a character and the setting, before we dive into the character’s minds, brooding over their lives – often in a dream-like state. Nocturnal introspection pervades this record.
What has always been refreshing about her work is her attentiveness to mundane details. We hear about people paying their mortgage off and going on Tinder. Then there is Tempest’s deeply cynical worldview; taking the monster tune “Europe is Lost” and the gloomy apocalyptic ‘Tunnel Vision’ together, she lists just about everything wrong with society. The world is caving in and we are the architects of our own destruction.
Let Them Eat Chaos does not contain the absorbing narratives that were present on Everybody Down. Tempest’s poetic façade shines more brightly on this occasion. This is poetry set to music, having the same punch of hip hop, brimming with modernity and relevance. And there is nothing like a record that creates a palpable sense of atmosphere. The starry synths and night time ruminations render this album ideal for the darker days coming up.
CT Rating: 7/10
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Adam Bielenberg | Music Writer
