Fontaines D.C., A Hero’s Death
Partisan Records
Fontaines D.C. did not make things easy for themselves when they release Dogrel. As a debut, it was remarkable: a practical masterclass in post-punk, charged with boundless energy, poetic rage, and searing authenticity. However, sophomore release A Hero’s Death provides that Fontaines are not a band who have any desire to make things easy for themselves. A Hero’s Death puts Dogrel firmly to bed, and it does so self-consciously, unforgivingly, and fiercely intentionally.
Since Fontaines have so clearly eschewed the notion that they might have in any way rehashed their debut, it seems counterintuitive to spend a review comparing the two. It’s impossible, though, not to hear the craft that’s gone into making the album ‘not Dogrel’ and the self-awareness with which Fontaines did so – from agonising lyrical hints like “I don’t belong to anyone” and “I was not born into this world to do another man’s bidding”, their artistic autonomy has never been clearer. A Hero’s Death does not care if it satisfies anyone apart from its creators.
Satisfaction isn’t something bands should have to strive for from their fans, and if a record becomes something that might challenge expectations, so be it. But in the name of pushing itself, A Hero’s Death seems to have done away with the most essential ingredient in what makes Fontaines D.C. such an essential band – urgency. Where Dogrel scattered punctuating eruptions of two-minute tracks amongst frantic five-minute epics, four to five minutes is the standard for AHD. Dogrel’s vibrant volatility has been replaced with burgeoning doom and slow-burn dark melancholy, and while it’s definitely an intense listening experience, it fails to quite take on the life that permeated Dogrel so fiercely.
What A Hero’s Death is permeated with is mantras. It is so resolute about what it is and what it’s doing; singles A Hero’s Death and I Don’t Belong ominously, laboriously repeat their lyrics with the force of a hydraulic press. The record’s overall slower pace means that every lyric is delivered with such sharp deliberateness that the whole thing becomes an irrefutable command to listen. A Lucid Dream hints at the vigour of Dogrel with a rapid drum line and a churning guitar line – though the grinding quality of the instrumental means that it stays as heavy as the rest of AHD, still unmistakeably dark, there’s an energy to it that crops up on occasion (like on the title track). However, A Lucid Dream is followed up by the grimly reflective You Said and sparse, otherworldly-folk of Oh Such A Spring, reminding us that Fontaines are killing off any assumptions of the type of music they should be making.
Frontman Grian Chatten has always been an awe-inspiringly compelling frontman, and while A Hero’s Death isn’t perhaps what Fontaines fans were expecting (or hoping for), there can be no denying that the band’s reimagined style is one that suits him to the bone. Dogrel’s raucous youthfulness was delivered through his rallying cries, and A Hero’s Death’s dense low-key ferocity is captured flawlessly in what’s now a drawl, a growl, a disparaging throwaway. Chatten’s vocals are both a vessel for and reflection of A Hero’s Death’s transformation.
A Hero’s Death won’t be for everyone. But that’s not what Fontaines D.C. are concerned with – what’s searing about A Hero’s Death is the deep cuts it makes into notions of self, internalisation, and interiority (their Modernist influences, it would seem, are intact), and the insistence of its intentionality. Fontaines D.C. have done exactly what it would seem they set out to do, which is re-establish themselves as not voices of their generation, or of post-punk, or of Dublin, or of poetry, but as voices of themselves.
A Hero’s Death is out this Friday, July 31st.
