Album Review :: Fontaines D.C. - A Hero’s Death

Album

Fontaines D.C. 

A Hero’s Death

July 31 2020 (Partisan Records)

8.5/10

Words: Ali Mack

Their debut album ‘Dogrel’ depicted the early life in the days of a Dublin band. A year on, this second round for Fontaines D.C. represents an older, somewhat wiser incarnation that spews out a darker and more brooding, expressive work, with songs that mine a lyrical depth of introspection.

'A Hero’s Death' was written almost immediately after the debut was completed, but where 'Dogrel' opened with 'Big', and Grian Chatten declaring with prescience how his "childhood was small / But I’m gonna be big", on 'I Don’t Belong', the first track here, the tone is more downbeat as now he says "I don’t belong to anyone / I don’t wanna belong to anyone,” as the brooding rhythms chugging behind amplify the dismisssl of expectations of other people who consider themselves loyal to you, make it the "statement" song - "like the anti-'Big'."

The hypnotically gloomy, bass-heavy ‘Televised Mind’ had previously been described by Chatten as "about the echo chamber, and how personality gets stripped away by surrounding approval." That the band had been listening to the likes of The Prodigy and The Brian Jonestown Massacre before penning the song may be evidenced in its preponderance of droning guitars and rolling drums.

Coming after it, the clattering and fast-paced  ‘A Lucid Dream’ sees the lyrics typically scatteemr-gunned thtough a sonic swirl of guitars, while the melodic ‘You Said’ is owned by atmospheric guitars; both this, and the subdued ‘Sunny’, are the more delicate interludes, with the latter showing dreamy Beach Boys-esque vocals and a well-executed arrangement.

The album's title track - the title deriving from a line in a play by Brendan Behan - is a telling one. Chatten says the lyrics were written "during a time where I felt consumed by the need to write something else to alleviate the fear that I would never be able follow up 'Dogrel'." Lines like “You said you been on the brink, so slow down / Don’t get time to think now / You try operating faster, operating faster, operating…”, over tripping harmonies, which the band played around with while in America and listening to the Beach Boys, reinforce "the battle between happiness and depression, and the trust issues that can form tied to both of those feelings."

And on the five-minute pensive closer 'No', Chatten sombrely concludes with almost a resigned weariness, "And we know what freedom brings / The awful songs it makes you sing", and how "There’s no living to a life / Where all your fears are running rife.”

‘A Hero’s Death’ comes as a statement of intent, and of a band growing and maturing in musical exploration.