Chartreuse – ‘Bless You and Be Well’ album review: whimsy indie with a piercing heart

Posted On August 28, 2025August 28, 2025

From the rugged, rural outlook of the northernmost tip of Iceland, the British indie rock band Chartreuse clearly thought it was time to bear their souls. That epiphany moment of searing vulnerability typically comes at a much later point in an artist’s career, but with a series of harrowing life events marring their souls, the quartet have decided to rip off this plaster really as they only just begin.

Bless You & Be Well, the sophomore effort from the Black Country four-piece Chartreuse – comprised of brothers Mike and Rory Wagstaff, alongside Hattie Wilson and Perry Lovering – is striking for its lyrical honesty above anything else. This is ultimately the exact goal the band set out to achieve on their second album, set to be released via Communion Records. But with the help of the creative muse of the studio Flóki in Iceland and producer Sam Petts-Davies, it evidently grew from an experience of deep-seated trauma into a searing and riveting set of 11 songs.

For a band still so relatively in the infancy of their career – their debut album Morning Ritual only arrived in 2023 – Chartreuse have been through a hell of a lot in that short time. Wilson was forced to undergo major surgeries between albums, which changed the face of her current life, while Lovering tragically lost his father. These challenges are bound to test any band to its limit, but Chartreuse are laying down the case that it can actually bring an already intimate dynamic even closer.

In all honesty, does the album completely reinvent the wheel or offer anything truly revolutionary to the sonics of the current indie canon? Perhaps not too much, but as far as forlorn and moody soundscapes go as staples of the genre, it’s a pretty strong example. Imagine if Justin Vernon from Bon Iver formed a new outfit with Phoebe Bridgers, with a more mild-mannered hint of Fontaines DC thrown in for good measure. Bless You & Be Well wouldn’t be a long way off, whatever concoction that would conjure.

Don’t be mistaken, however. Despite the fairly stark backdrop of personal tragedies that breathed life into this album, it is not a slew of Adele-esque heartbreakers. The darkness is largely confined to the lyrical imagery – “I hope someone knows I exist/ A crack, a picture, a blip/ But only I can feel it,” they depressingly lament in ‘I’m Losing It’ – but with pacy beats and earworm riffs, it equally wouldn’t be out of place at any number of festival slots.

Much like their namesake suggests, Chartreuse are a band with an intoxicating allure, mainly cultivated through their dynamics. Rarely since Fleetwood Mac have we ever witnessed a group where both male and female vocalists share the helm, which offers a refreshing back-and-forth that prevents the album’s melancholic moments from becoming that little bit too heavy.

It may not be a fully defining record, but Bless You & Be Well is certainly an achievement in spite of all Chartreuse have been faced with. Tragedy may have tightly grasped them with its sinister fingers, but it’s the mark of a band who will inevitably go places that they have transformed this into some level of triumph. 

Ideal listening experience: Preferably amid the rugged landscapes of Iceland, where the band recorded the album themselves, but if that’s too far from home, your favourite countryside drive on a rainy day will do the trick.

For fans of: Burrowing introspection and the moment when you’re drunk and start reflecting on every trauma you’ve ever endured.

A concluding comment from some French Carthusian monks: “This is going to make our liqueur sales shoot through the roof!”

Release date: August 29th, 2025 | Producer: Sam Petts-Davies | Label: Communion Records