Album Review: The Chills - Scatterbrain (2021)

A few months back, when the Guardian published a list of the ten “best” Chills songs to celebrate the arrival of the band’s new album, Scatterbrain, all of the songs featured on the list were released between 1981 and 1990. And although that list did tend to capture the essence of the band’s best work, anyone unfamiliar with The Chills might be left wondering if that’s all there is, or was, to The Chills ... a band consigned to the 80s with little worth celebrating over the past 30-odd years? Fans of band are likely to see things a bit differently.

 For the record, ‘House with a Hundred Rooms’ topped the list, ahead of more obvious bangers like ‘I Love My Leather Jacket’ and ‘Pink Frost’, but there was no room for ‘Heavenly Pop Hit’ or a multitude of other post-1990 gems. Fair enough, lists are merely lists after all, and that was the Guardian’s view. 

Scatterbrain is the band’s seventh studio album, the first since 2018’s well-received Snow Bound, and it finds the band’s songwriter and key protagonist Martin Phillipps in a contemplative and reflective mood. Which is perhaps understandable … anyone who has viewed the excellent recent music-documentary, ‘The Chills: The Triumph and Tragedy of Martin Phillipps’, will have been given a good insight into Phillipps’ rather tumultuous personal journey over the years. 

On Scatterbrain we find Phillipps offering up a few more thoughts about where that journey has taken him, bringing us up to date with where things are at, a little further along the path, in 2021. With a refreshing honesty and maturity. In that same warm familiar clever way he always has. As a man now confronting his own fragility, his own mortality, and that of those around him. 

But while death is one of the most immediately evident themes on Scatterbrain, not least on tunes like ‘Destiny’ and ‘Caught In My Eye’, there’s also plenty of positivity to be found, and an affirmation that life is full of twists and turns. Delivered with certain pragmatism and an acceptance that all of our journeys are constantly evolving. 

‘Safe and Sound’ is one of the best low-key takes on offer, a very Dunedin take, even, where Phillipps ponders the simple pleasures of being tucked up “safe and sound” at home on the sofa in front of a crackling fire on a cold winter’s night … “let’s stay at home, we won’t go out tonight” … 

Musically it is everything you’d expect from The Chills. Subtle hooks, catchy choruses that tend to creep up on you, and clever use of instruments that wouldn’t always be the most obvious choice for a lesser composer of classic pop tunes. 

The album isn’t without its flaws, or without the odd cringe(y) moment. And it’s probably not the sort of work that will grab you instantly upon first listen, but Scatterbrain goes well beyond any expectation I had of Phillipps and The Chills in 2021, and it’s another worthy addition to the musical legacy of one of Aotearoa’s best and most durable artists.