Chalk's two members are Academy Award-winning filmmakers first and a band second — Ross Cullen and Ben Goddard met in film school in 2019, bonded over Gilla Band and Nine Inch Nails, and didn't start the band itself until 2021.
Crystalpunk, their debut album, arrived in March 2026 and topped the UK Dance Chart, landing on The Guardian's list of the year's best albums so far.
The record is directly shaped by growing up in Belfast under the lingering shadow of sectarian conflict — the duo has said they felt 'unclaimed' by the traditional community labels of Northern Ireland, and that discomfort runs through the industrial-dance-punk hybrid they've built, one that reads as a genuine attempt to speak for a generation caught between old divisions rather than picking a side within them.