Fontaines DC return with their sophomore album ‘A Hero’s Death’ out 31 July 2020
Barely a year since their debut ‘Dogrel’ earned them a spot as one of the most acclaimed new bands of 2019, Dublin’s Fontaines D.C. will return with ‘A Hero’s Death’ on 31st July via Partisan Records. ‘Dogrel’ debuted Top 10 on the UK album charts, earning Fontaines D.C. a Mercury Prize nomination, #1 Album of the Year positions from BBC 6 Music and Rough Trade, a performance on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon and numerous sold out tours in the UK and abroad – including triumphantly selling out London Brixton Academy in just 1 week. Arriving battered and bruised - albeit beautiful - the album is anything but a re-hash of the swaggering energy from their first record. Instead, the music is patient, confident, and complex – a heady and philosophical take on the modern world and its great uncertainty. It no mistake that the words death and rebirth mingle within the album. With words taken from a play by Brendan Behan, and album art featuring the statue of the mythological Irish warrior Cuchulainn that stands in Dublin as a commemoration of the Easter Rising, there are layers to the phrase “A hero's death.”
For some fans the release of ‘A Hero’s Death’, will be a difficult shift away from the Fontaines DC of ‘Dogrel’ as this isn't that kind of quick-followup sophomore release many bands put out. It is, instead, sacrificing one identity in order to take on another, one that is fully is their own. “I do hope that people are shocked,” says vocalist Grian Chatten. “This is us as people. If people can't accept it or don't like it, then their band is gone”. Bold and brace words.
There are some great releases out there for ‘A Hero’s Death’ to compete with. There’s the exceptional late 2019 debut album ‘When I have Fears’ from The Murder Capital, and the much anticipated September release of ‘Ultra Mono’ from IDLES.
‘Dogrel’ was an outward looking album, full of restless frustration, whereas with ‘A Hero’s Death’ Fontaines DC take a much more inward, self-reflective look. Somehow though it still manages to maintain the same sense of immediacy.
The album kicks off with I Don’t Belong a melodic introduction to what follows, gentle guitar and bass placed behind the wonderful, almost monotone vocal delivery. It creates an excellent sense of texture and sonic mood, setting the scene brilliantly for whats to follow. The lyrics give a sense of feeling disconnected, and a need to express that isolation / division not just personally but creatively: “My word is always in the ready and I’ll attribute that to you” followed by the repeated line “I don’t belong to anyone”.
Love is the Main Thing for me had an almost Joy Division-esque feel to the vocals. The drums and bass provide the dominate backing here to great effect, creating a dynamic wall of sound. The use of repeated lyrical lines delivered to perfection.
Up next we have Televised Mind one of the older tracks, written before ‘Dogrel’ was released and one of my highlights of the album. Reminding me of The Murder Capital, the distorted guitar running through the track blends with the pulse of the bass and pounding drums. Followed by the pounding
A Lucid Dream with swirling, almost wind-like sounds in the mix. A track full of character with loud and proud vocals dominating brilliantly, firing at you almost like bullets from a machine gun at times, with a wonderful slow thoughtful almost muffled delivery in the middle, before bursting to life again. One of my favourite tracks.
Next up we have You Said an example of the change in direction the band have consciously made since ‘Dogrel’. Slowed down vocals with a simpler guitar tone as an effective under current, with once again strong bass tones. The slower pace continues with Oh Such A Spring, a real rough diamond of a song in which Chatten’s irish lilt comes through perfectly –a yearning for the beauty of spring from the grime of the town, with lyrics such as “The noise of the town, the salt in the air. It plays all around but I no longer care. I wish I could go back to spring again” and “I watched all the folks go to work just to die, and I wished I could go back to Spring again”.
The quiet is soon broken as there’s a real rock feel to the start of my personal favourite track, and the title one, A Hero’s Death with a fantastic brash drum beat. The lyrics are delivered in a spoken word style delivering short punchy and recurring positive phrases such as “Don’t get stuck in the past”, “Tell your mother that you love her” and “buy yourself a flower every hundredth hour” based around the central phrase “Life ain’t always empty”. A message about looking on the positive side of things and living a ‘meaningful life’ …… it’s a really fresh track - loud, forceful and in your face but a great song to sing along and move to.
We change pace and style again with the introduction to Living in America a vast brooding and sprawling noise driven track of low-end noise, tone and distortion. It fits really well here on the album. Hard to describe, but it kind of disperses the energy that’s built up to this point. Followed by I Was Not Born, a slow start builds rapidly to a full on, pounding punk inspired track. The wall of sound is overlaid with almost Pistols like Johnny Rotten vocals, matching the track perfectly.
From such a powerful full on track, we drop off a sonic cliff once again with the arrival of Sunny with it’s lush languid, laid back harmonies. This new style from Fonmtaines DC really suits Chatten’s voice and the track has a wonderful layered vocal style in the chorus.
And so we arrive at our journey’s end, with No a beautiful and thoughtful song about loss and how it can adversely affect you “Give us all you got, you’re in love and then you’re not. You can lock yourself away, just appreciate the grey. You have heard and you have lost, you’re acquainted with the cost, the one that comes with feeling deep, you’re still paying in your sleep”. The lyrics here are exceptional “Don’t play around with blame, it does nothing for the pain”. The album twists and turns, from raucous noise to soft ballad-like tracks, and No pulls it all together, like tying a bow, as it fades away.
So there we have it ‘A Hero’s Death’ from Fontaines DC. The band acknowledged that this was no ordinary second album, and that they could lose some fans with their new style. Was it a risk worth taking? For me, it sure was. I loved ‘Dogrel’ but this from the Dublin five-piece is exceptional. As a second album, they have taken an introspective look at themselves, as individuals and as a band, and added new colour and mood to their style….. and it works, and it works very well. If this is the real Fontaines DC, they’ve just made themselves even more essential listening.
9.5 from LiveWire Music for an exception release.
Fontaines DC are embarking on a UK tour in May 2021 with their ‘A Hero’s Death’ album, this will be one not to miss. For more information and tckets check out the bands website here: https://www.fontainesdc.com/live/
