The band is connected to their homeland. This is in nice contrast to the international of globalization, which is also popular in the cultural sector. While “Dogrel” (2019), the quintet’s debut, was populated by nothing but tragi-comic Irish characters, “A Hero’s Death” (2020) pervaded a sense of alienation: what happens when a bunch of young people spend a lot of time on tour buses, Hotel rooms and concert halls. With “Skinty Fia” Fontaines DC now celebrate their homecoming to Dublin. And they tell stories of Irish people in the British diaspora. The Irish Gaelic language plays a central role.
Fontaines DC burst their post-punk chains with this third album
The first piece is called “In ár gCroíthe go deo”. A bass pumps. A chorale rises. The drums drive everything towards a furious finale. Radiohead pathos seems within reach. Grian Chatten warns in a trembling voice: “Gone is the day, gone is the night, gone is the day.” The song is based on the real case of an Irish woman who was buried a few years ago in Coventry, England. Her dying wish that her tombstone should read “In ár gCroíthe go deo” (“Forever in our hearts”) was thwarted by the local church.
“Skinty Fia”, on the other hand, is an old Irish idiom – or rather a curse for everyday situations of being overwhelmed. Like the title track, about a doomed relationship riddled with drugs and paranoia. In addition, a sound vibrates between Pixies, Joy Division and Björk. Fontaines DC burst their post-punk chains with this third album. They raise questions and moral standards. It’s about traditions and identities – and how they are destroyed. The protagonist in “Nabokov”, the last track on the record, sacrifices his independence for a supposedly perverse love: “Pain pure sky/ I’ll be your dog in the corner.” This is also a nice alternative to the ideology of individualism.
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