Single Review: Grian Chatten, Antony Genn & Martin Slattery – Puppet

PUPPET

When Grian Chatten drops something new, it’s not background noise, it’s an event. With ‘Puppet‘, written for Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man, he’s gone full 3am backroom, glass of brandy swirling slow while the room stays in silent mode.

This one isn’t a solo wander either, ‘Puppet‘ comes crafted by Chatten alongside Antony Genn and Martin Slattery, you can hear that shared DNA in the detail. It’s not overproduced, not bloated, just sharp, deliberate and heavy with atmosphere.

The track creeps in, it stalks, it’s all tension in the shoulders and frost in the lungs. You can feel the grime of Birmingham clinging to it with the paranoia, the power plays and the quiet menace that Cillian Murphy made iconic. Nobody oversells it, they let the mood do the talking.

Premiered via BBC Radio 1, this feels less like soundtrack filler and more like it’s been carved straight out of the Shelby universe. There’s a restraint in the vocal that hits harder than any stadium-sized crescendo ever could. It simmers instead of explodes and that’s exactly why it works so well.

What makes it land is that it still feels unmistakably him with the same poetic edge we’ve heard steering Fontaines D.C. through chaos and beauty alike, just sharpened for the big screen. Moody. Minimal and cold-blooded cool.

‘Puppet‘ doesn’t beg for your attention, it commands it quietly and that’s way more dangerous.