FONTAINES D.C. - SKINTY FIA
credit: jon pisani
Fontaines D.C. return with a dark and gloomy, yet vulnerable and sweet-sounding project, as Skinty Fia is the bands best album yet.
Two years since the release of Grammy nominated A Hero’s Death, the question raised was where Fontaines DC could move forward in future projects. Through this project they had perfected the sound presented to us in their 2019-released debut LP Dogrel, and one could have thought that they were destined for the usual post-punk revival route of similar yet catchy sounds.
Considering this, it was a pleasant surprise listening to their third album, Skinty Fia, which released on April 22nd of this year, as it wasn’t only a true representation of what makes the band so memorable, but also reinvented their sound, harbouring new influences, melodies, and rhythms.
The statement that this album will be different is made clear from the first song of the album ‘In ár gCroíthe go deo’. Instantly gripping with an intense and harrowing bassline, the intro song is a 6 minute build up, followed by fast drum tempos, a more melodic vocal approach, and heavy guitars. In this moment the album builds a sense of identity very familiar to the band. Incorporating their native tongue not only with the album cover, but within songs as well, it provides this homesick atmosphere. Knowing that Fontaines are no longer residing in their hometown in Ireland, it makes the project way more personal, and that pays off immensely towards providing Skinty Fia with a sentimental value.
Throughout the album’s duration, it aims to challenge the listener, rather than provide the usual anthems most people are used to. It means to express cultural identity in multiple ways. It wants to make the evolving Irish culture that exists in England known, through the eyes of someone struggling with their own cultural identity. This makes sense considering multiple interviews the band held, in which they elaborated on their ideas and aims for the record.
Each track arrives with its own theme, whether it be through ‘How Cold Love Is’ and its expression of a double-edged sword between love and addiction, the themes of misanthropy and fighting to keep your culture in a place that doesn’t accept it through ‘Jackie Down the Line’, or the differences and fears between youthful and long-lasting love in a more traditional Irish song, ‘The Couple Across the Way.’
The title track, ‘Skinty Fia’, has this harrowing aura surrounding it. It creates a feeling of inescapability and impending doom. This coincides with lead singer Grian Chatten’s explanation of the song, it being solely revolving the inevitability of having your fate and story already written for you. These ideas and expressions become amplified considering the main theme of England’s conception of Irishness and Irish identity.
This perfectly leads into the second single released, ‘I Love You’. This track while elaborating on the band’s love for their country, it also expresses disappointment towards the corruption and current political state of Dublin and Ireland. It is the bands most political song to date, and one which plays on this idea brilliantly, as it is predominantly a love song dedicated to Ireland, with sudden switches, encapsulating the emergency and critique towards the corruption that exists within it.
The album closes with ‘Nabokov’, a nihilistic end to a thought provoking and dark album, which portrays an immediate sense of compromise and lack of control over one’s life and independence. It starts providing a false sense of security, just to be dropped in darkness and uncertainty. With the end of ‘Nabokov’, multiple questions and a lingering sense of dread and nihilism are unearthed, but that is what the album is trying to provoke in the first place. It is an excellent transcription of identity crisis, addiction, hopes and fears and love. It is the most mature we have seen Fontaines D.C., and it pays off knowing that not only have they found their stride but have detached themselves from the usual standards that the post-punk revival has brought and become a unique staple in the genre.
Dan Tsourekas
★★★★☆