Irish post-punk band Fontaines D.C. have made an astounding career since their debut in 2019 with Dogrel. A reference to the working-class poetry of the country, Dogrel was a statement, it was fast and lean, bursting with energy from the very first track as vocalist Grian Chatten called out over an instrumental rush down from the four other members of the band. Singles like ‘Liberty Belle’ and ‘Hurricane Laughter’ found them heralded them as one of the best new bands around, a trend that’s continued as they were just dubbed the “best band in the world” at the BandLab NME Awards. Their second album, 2020’s A Hero’s Death, only saw them expand their profile further, bringing them to the wider world and then to professionally-shot live albums, appearances on American late-night TV, and music videos.
The latest of those productions is the claustrophobic visual accompaniment to ‘Skinty Fia’, the title track to the band’s third album, once again drawing on an Irish idiom for inspiration. Literally translating to “damnation of the deer”, that animal features prominently on the cover of the album and also on the inlay of one of the vinyl variants. In practice though, it’s an exclamation meant for times of disappointment, and that disappointment is a thread that thus far runs through all the singles from Skinty Fia. ‘Jackie Down the Line’ was not a radical departure from their style but definitely struck a darker note in its lyrics with a narrator who fails to see the value even in happiness; ‘I Love You’ arrived a frustrated, blistering anthem about the meaning of Irish heritage and the institutional atrocities committed there in years past, a direct foray into subject matter the band has only previously skirted in their more character-driven material.
Third up as a single, ‘Skinty Fia’ the track is the most radical departure from their sound the band has ever done, save perhaps for the gorgeous, minimalist accompaniment to the poetry of ‘Dublin City Sky’. Simultaneously among the band’s most accessible and uncharacteristic songs, they’ve pushed the usually-prominent guitars of Carlos O’Connell and Conor Curley back in the mix to make way for a drumbeat from Tom Coll that sounds akin to something UNKLE might have put out back in the day: trip-hoppy and relentless.
The video finds Chatten and the band interspersed in a crowded club scene, red-blue-green LEDs cycling over their faces as Chatten delivers one of the most unique vocals he’s ever put to tape. It’s hauntingly void of dynamic shifts, almost fully monotone til its final moments, as he adopts the persona of a shady character mixed up in what seems to be an unhealthy relationship. “I’m not inclined towards the scandalous word / but on the subject of myself I do believe what I’ve heard” he quips, casually meandering onscreen through a kind of masquerade ball that features ever-stranger imagery: feet stomping grapes, wicker men being tossed into the air, and of course, someone in a giant deer mask at the center of it all.
Speaking to Rolling Stone, Chatten discussed that much of the record deals with the notion of “Irishness existing in England”, and to a lesser extent in other places with strong historical ties to Ireland like Boston, where a whole new culture has long since been forked from the Irishness of home. It’s about feeling out of place, presumably why the deer on the album’s cover is indoors, and why the motion blur on its face suggests it’s whipping around to see something unpleasant coming from behind a cracked door, where light has just started to pour in. There’s doom bad portents around; more so than ever before, this is an album that seems interested in darkness, even anger, and the titles of the as-yet-unreleased tracks (see below), including “How Cold Love Is”, promise that the album will be a fascinating descent to new depths when it releases via Partisan Records on the 22nd of April, on the second day of the band’s American tour.
Tracklist:
- In ár gCroíthe go deo
- Big Shot
- How Cold Love Is
- Jackie Down the Line
- Bloomsday
- Roman Holiday
- The Couple Across the Way
- Skinty Fia
- I Love You
- Nabokov
Tour dates:
- April 21: Washington, DC @ 9:30 Club
- April 22: Philadelphia, PA @ Underground Arts
- April 23: Asbury Park, NJ @ Wonder Bar
- April 25: Boston, MA @ Paradise Rock Club
- April 26-27: Brooklyn, NY @ Brooklyn Steel
- April 29: Columbus, OH @ A&R Music Bar
- April 30: Cleveland, OH @ Beachland Ballroom
- May 2: Montreal, QC @ Theatre Corona
- May 5: Detroit, MI @ St. Andrew’s Hall
- May 6: Chicago, IL @ Vic Theatre
- May 7: Minneapolis, MN @ First Avenue
- May 9: Denver, CO @ Ogden Theatre
- May 10: Salt Lake City, UT @ Soundwell
- May 12: Portland, OR @ Revolution Hall
- May 13: Vancouver, BC @ Rickshaw Theatre
- May 14: Seattle, WA @ Showbox SoDo
- May 16: San Francisco, CA @ Recency Ballroom
- May 18-19: Los Angeles, CA @ Regent Theatre
Review by Collin Heroux